Mike Trout had not had a four-hit game in more than five years, and that changed Sunday when the Los Angeles Angels beat the San Francisco Giants 4-3. Trout went 4-for-4 with a double and three singles, the kind of night that can look routine only if you ignore how long it had been since he last did it.
The four hits were Trout's first in a game since April 26, 2021, and they pushed his batting average to.247. They also nudged his place in Angels history: his double was his 340th career double, moving him past Tim Salmon for second on the club's doubles list. Garrett Anderson leads that category with 489, while Trout also sat fourth on the Angels' all-time singles list with 1,014.
That singles total leaves Trout behind Garrett Anderson, Darin Erstad and Brian Downing, and it is a reminder that the rare burst Sunday came in the middle of a season in which every extra hit still matters. A four-hit game was the 21st of Trout's career, which makes the performance notable on its own, but even more so because it arrived with his average still below.250. The game did not reset the bigger picture around Trout's season. It only made plain how unusual it is when one of the sport's most accomplished hitters suddenly strings together four clean swings in one afternoon.
What comes next is not a new milestone to chase so much as the same one Trout has been chasing all season: turning a brief surge into something that can pull his numbers higher for more than a night. Sunday moved him up two Angels lists and ended a long drought at the plate. It did not make the rest of the season any simpler, which is exactly why the game stood out.
