Top Angels prospect Jo Adell ecstatic to be healthy and playing again

Reporting from SAN BERNARDINO —  There were times during the 10 weeks he was on the injured list that Angels outfield prospect Jo Adell wanted to rush. He wanted to breeze through his rehabilitation at the Angels’ spring-training complex in Arizona, push against the methodical recommendations from team doctors and rejoin his double-A teammates as soon as possible.

But Adell, the Angels’ top-ranked minor league talent, always bit his tongue.

“They were going to be extra careful,” Adell said last weekend. “I knew that.”

Two and a half months after suffering a strained left hamstring and sprained right ankle during one play in spring training, Adell sat last weekend on the worn wooden bench in the Class-A Inland Empire 66ers’ San Manuel Stadium dugout, laughter brightening his face as he described how refreshing it was to be back in action. He was four for 13 in three games before Tuesday, and hit his first home run Saturday.

“I guess I had youth on my side,” said Adell, who turned 20 on April 8. “I didn’t have much swelling and then next thing you know I’m able to walk around and do that type of deal.”

Adell, the 10th overall pick of the 2017 draft, injured his hamstring as he tried to go from first to third base on a single in a split-squad game against the Chicago Cubs on March 9. He sprained his ankle when he tried to stop his momentum.

As he writhed on the infield, his thoughts wandered to the worst-case scenario: Might his barking lower extremities heal so slowly that he would sit out his entire second full professional season? They didn’t. Adell was fitted with crutches and a walking boot but shed them before the Angels broke camp. Now he can continue the upward trajectory that started in 2018.

Adell is rated as one of the top 10 prospects in baseball. He hit a combined .290 with an .890 on-base-plus-slugging percentage in 99 games at three levels last year, advancing to the double-A Mobile (Ala.) BayBears at age 19 in his first complete season. Had he sustained such success across five months in 2019, it would have been easy to imagine the Angels ticketing Adell for his major league debut this September.

But the injuries cost him two months of development. No volume of hitting drills — Adell worked on his swing from a chair set up at a plate in the batting cage for a few weeks — can make up for missing 40 or so games at double A.

So there is no pressure placed on Adell, either from within or by the Angels, to tear through the minor league system at the rate he did last year. Only eagerness to get back on the field and finish this season healthy has motivated Adell.

“A week after I got hurt, there was really nothing I could do other than just watch the boys and think that I should be out there,” Adell said. “But, ultimately, in baseball there’s a lot of games. By the time that I get there, we’re gonna have 100 left. When my [mind-set] changed to thinking like that, I was good to go.

“I say things happen for a reason,” he added. “This injury was good for me. It gave me some adversity and really made me that much more hungry for what I got coming.”

Sign up for our daily sports newsletter »

General manager Billy Eppler said last week the Angels had not predetermined Adell’s schedule. Adell’s time with the 66ers will end when team officials decide he’s ready to return to the more competitive environment in the double-A Southern League.

“He is on a game progression there,” Eppler said. “Still working back to his accustomed level, so we opted to utilize the California League as his next step.”

Adell hopes he can return to Mobile next week to meet a challenge. His dad, Scott, told him several times that he plans to attend Mobile’s game in Chattanooga, Tenn., on June 3 whether Adell is there or not.

Adell has played center field without experiencing any ill effects from the injuries that cut short his first major league spring training. He might actually make it back to the BayBears in time.

“Here I am and it’s just started, 2019,” Adell said. “The season is here for Jo Adell.”

[email protected]

@maria_torres3