ANAHEIM — Mickey Moniak still longs for the day when he has the opportunity to regularly face lefties, even though he acknowledges the risks are more than just lowering his batting average. The Angels outfielder is currently out with a left hand contusion suffered when he was hit by a pitch from Houston Astros left-hander Caleb Ferguson on Sunday afternoon. Moniak walked off the field immediately, which he said was because he figured he had broken his hand.
Moniak has been here before. He broke his right hand at the end of spring training with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022. He fractured his left middle finger trying to bunt that August with the Angels.
He was also hit by a pitch at the end of 2022, in August of this year and again on Sunday. Those each cost him a few games. All of those happened when Moniak was facing left-handed pitchers.
“It’s definitely not a coincidence,” Moniak said. “I think the sequence of pitches they throw is just what the numbers say.” Moniak said both times he broke his hand, and again on Sunday, he took a slider away on the previous pitch.
“They get me leaning over the plate a bit,” Moniak said. “And they try to go two-seam in because they think they have me leaning, and they just miss up.” Moniak said he takes one precaution when he faces a lefty, wearing a pad on his right hand.
Otherwise, he doesn’t think all of it means that he needs to change his approach against lefties, or even stop facing them entirely. Moniak has.