Christian

Moore

It looks to be just a regular day of rest for the 22-year-old infielder. Christian Moore will start in his place at second base and will bat eighth for the Halos against Rangers’ right-hander Cal Quantrill.

Moore gets another chance with Nolan Schanuel hurt and hopefully will stick as a regular for the rest of the season, even if Schanuel does make it back. The 2024 first-rounder was hitting .302/.431/.512 with 11 homers and 15 steals in 86 games at Salt Lake. He probably doesn’t need to be grabbed in shallow mixed leagues, but those in deeper formats could give him a shot.

Moore is hitting .309/.436/.518 with 10 home runs, 57 RBI, and 14 steals in 80 Triple-A games. Meanwhile, Denzer Guzman is hitting .157 in 16 games since the All-Star break and has just a .626 OPS in 49 MLB games this season.

Moore is hitting .307/.434/.517 in 78 games at Triple-A with 10 home runs, 56 RBI, and 13 steals with an 84/65 K/BB ratio. With the Angels out of playoff contention, it would make sense for them to call Moore up again and give him an actual chance at playing time.

Moore goes and Josh Lowe stays with Jose Siri back from the paternity list. It’s a little amusing that the Angels are still listing Moore as an infielder on their official transaction after using him in left field five times and second base just once during his stint in the majors. Moore was 4-for-20 with 11 strikeouts in nine days with the Angels. He’ll probably get a longer look at some point during the second half.

Moore is 1-for-8 with a sac fly as a left fielder on Thursday and a DH last night. The Angels are picking Donovan Walton and Denzer Guzman over him tonight.

At least the night doesn’t look quite as bad as it would have if Vaughn Grissom hadn’t gotten a hit to bring him to the plate with two outs in the ninth and given him a chance to collect a late single. Moore, though, had a really tough time in left field, a position he’d played just nine times as a pro and sparingly in college. He misjudged Nick Kurtz’s fly to deep left in the first and gave him a double that helped fuel a five-run inning, and he was charged with an error on a tougher play in the fifth, when he slightly overran Jonah Heim’s fly and had it go off his glove for an error. The Angels might keep Moore in left field for now, but he’d surely be more comfortable at second or third.

With Mike Trout (hamstring) landing on the injured list, Moore will get another opportunity to show what he can do at the big league level. The 23-year-old was sizzling at the Triple-A level, slashing .333/.468/.585 with nine homers, 45 RBI and 10 stolen bases in 252 plate appearances.

Moore was placed on the Triple-A injured list on May 4th with a leg injury. He wound up missing about a week and has been on fire since coming back, going 38-for-102 (.373) with three home runs, 28 runs scored, 25 RBI, five steals, and a 26/18 K/BB ratio. Considering he struck out 33.7 percent of the time in his 53 MLB games last season, that K/BB ratio is a major improvement. The 23-year-old has also been playing third base lately, which should expedite his path back to the majors since Denzer Guzman is currently playing there for the Angels. We could see Moore back up in the big leagues pretty soon.

The issue is considered “minor,” and the expectation is that he won’t be out long, but any absence is going to delay his potential call-up to the big leagues. Moore is hitting just .219 in 21 Triple-A games, but he has a .437 on-base percentage due to a 27.2 percent walk rate. He has a solid 40 percent hard-hit rate, but he’ll need to take that elite plate discipline and start to turn those at-bats into hits.