Angels Veteran Appears to Have Been Benched Amid Struggles

Jeff Fletcher of The Orange County Register had his usual article breaking down the latest musings involving the Halos. One interesting nugget involved veteran infielder Luis Rengifo. Putting two and two together, it appears as if he was benched for some uneven play this past week.

"Luis Rengifo was out of the lineup for the second straight game because Manager Ron Washington wanted to give him “a chance to clear his head.” Rengifo has been having a bad year at the plate, and last week he was pulled from a game because he lost track of the outs while he was playing second base."

As the quote details, Rengifo did not start Sunday's game against the Orioles at home — nor did he start Monday's tilt versus the Padres in San Diego (though he did get a hit off the bench later in the contest).

Every player goes through a slump. Washington knows that more than anyone given his involvement in professional baseball spanning more than half a century. There are times where a player simply needs to clear his head before getting back out on the field. After all, like all professional sports, baseball is immensely mental in nature.

Washington deemed the two-game break to be long enough, as Rengifo was back in the starting lineup at second base Tuesday evening at Petco Park.

First breaking in with the Angels in 2019, Rengifo is a career .250 hitter in seven years with the big club. He hit a career-high .300 last year in 283 at-bats. The hopes were that Rengifo would cement a spot in the starting lineup and potentially provide a spark to the top of the order.

As evidenced by his numbers, it's been a slow start to the year thus far. Last year, Rengifo stole 24 bases. Thus far in 2025, he's only swiped one bag in three attempts.

There's still plenty of time for Rengifo to turn things around given the infancy stage in which the regular season still sits. By stringing together a couple of strong performances, he could provide the Angels with some much-needed lineup depth.