Brandon Wood’s struggles carry over to Triple-A

Brandon Wood was placed on the disabled list last month in a move due partly to a hip injury and partly to the Angels wanting to send a player without a minor-league option to Triple-A. Wood is officially now “rehabbing” his injury at Triple-A and for the first time his big-league struggles are carrying over to the minors. Wood has gone 6-for-33 (.182) with 11 strikeouts, zero walks, and zero extra-base hits in eight games at Triple-A, where he previously batted .290 with a .900 OPS in more than 300 games. Prior to the injury/demotion he was hitting .156 with a gruesome 36/2 K/BB ratio in 39 games for the Angels this season and .179 with a 110/9 K/BB ratio in 125 career games as a big leaguer. He’s still just 25 years old, so there’s certainly time for Wood to salvage his career, but if he’s no longer crushing Triple-A pitching there’s really nothing to cling to in terms of optimism. It’ll be interesting to see what the Angels do once his rehab assignment is up in a couple weeks, because he’s clearly not deserving of an MLB roster spot at this point and they can’t leave him in the minors without first passing him through waivers.