CLEVELAND — A day off did nothing to cool off Mike Trout.
The Angels slugger did not play on Sunday, despite hitting home runs in his previous six games, but when he got back into action on Monday, the streak continued.
Trout’s two-run homer in the Angels’ 5-4 loss to the Cleveland Guardians pulled him within one game of the major league record of eight straight games with a homer.
Trout’s fifth-inning homer tied the score, but the Angels lost after Aaron Loup gave up a run on Amed Rosario’s double down the left-field line in the seventh.
The Angels are now 3-4 in the seven games in which Trout has homered, which is a fitting bit of disappointment for an organization that has been defined by team failure amid individual greatness.
Trout is now one game from equaling the record that Dale Long first achieved with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1956. Don Mattingly equaled it with the New York Yankees in 1987 and Ken Griffey Jr. did it with the Seattle Mariners in 1993.
Since then, five other players have made it to seven, including Joey Votto last year with the Cincinnati Reds.
Trout will face right-hander Cody Morris on Tuesday. The 25-year-old Morris will be pitching in his third big league game.
The three-time American League MVP belted a first-pitch fastball from left-hander Konnor Pilkington into the trees beyond the center field fence in the fifth inning, a 422-foot shot that was his 35th homer of the season. The two-run homer also tied the score, 4-4.
That erased the last two runs of the four-run deficit the Angels faced after the second inning.
Reid Detmers gave up four hits and he hit a batter in the nightmare inning.
Detmers was able to bounce back, though. He allowed just two hits and two walks – one intentional – over the rest of his outing.
Loup followed Detmers to the mound and got out of the sixth, but in the seventh he gave up a leadoff single to Stephen Kwan and then Rosario’s run-scoring double.
