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The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim did not think they had any rotational needs. That was until recently when C.J. Wilson suffered a torn UCL that required season-ending ligament replacement surgery and Matt Shoemaker being demoted to Triple-A for ineffectiveness.
Fortunately, they had a big league caliber starter, Nick Tropeano, waiting in the wings for the Salt Lake Bees.
The West Islip grad and Stony Brook star has made two starts in the big leagues this season, April 23rd in which he received the win and July 24 when he received the loss.
This time around, it figures to be for a longer stint. Tropeano believes that to be the case.
“Yeah, I feel like last year having that small stint in the major leagues gave me a better idea on what I needed to work and improve on,” he said. “Being sent down to Triple-A in the beginning of the year gave me an opportunity to do that,” he added.
The Angels will face Chicago White Sox starter, Jose Quintana, who is just 6-10 but possesses a solid 3.62 ERA.
Fortunately for Tropeano, the White Sox rank dead last in the majors with 437 runs–just 3.7 runs per game.
He will have to deal with, however, the always-dangerous Jose Abreu, who leads the team in homers, AVG, RBI, hits, runs scored and OBP.
In his two starts, Tropeano has averaged 91.7 MPH with his fastball and he has used it 53.7 percent of the time. He uses both his slider and change up roughly 22 percent of the time.
(Statistics courtesy of Fan Graphs)
