Angels Lose Travis d'Arnaud to IL, Call Up Omar Martínez — Both Starting Catchers Now Sidelined

The Angels are down to their third-string options behind the plate. Travis d'Arnaud has been placed on the 10-day injured list with right foot plantar fasciitis, retroactive to May 7th, and the club has selected the contract of catcher Omar Martínez to fill the vacancy. Per the team's announcement, the move also required an open 40-man roster slot — available after Nick Sandlin's earlier roster transaction — to make room for Martínez.

This isn't a minor depth shuffle. The Angels have now lost both of their primary catchers to the injured list simultaneously. d'Arnaud, who was brought in for exactly these moments — veteran presence, game-calling credibility, some pop against right-handed pitching — is now watching from the trainer's room. Plantar fasciitis in the foot is the kind of nagging, slow-healing injury that rarely resolves cleanly on a 10-day timeline. Expect that IL stint to extend.

Martínez arrives with minimal major-league track record. He's a depth piece being asked to carry starting duties, and that matters in ways that ripple through the entire Angels lineup construction. A light-hitting, developmental catcher at the bottom of the order compresses an already-thin offense. Los Angeles ranks among the bottom third of the league in runs scored, and this move does nothing to improve that trajectory. The protection — or lack thereof — throughout the middle of the order also becomes more pronounced when a pitcher can essentially pitch around any threat knowing the lineup falls off sharply.

From a team-total perspective, this is a quiet but real downward pressure on the Angels' run production. Martínez projects as a near-automatic out at the nine hole, and with the Angels' rotation posting respectable ERAs at home recently, low-scoring games become a more plausible outcome. If LAA's team total is sitting at 4 or 4.5 tonight or over the next week-plus, the under carries genuine value — not because of one roster move in isolation, but because this reinforces a structural offensive problem that was already there. Fade the Angels' run-scoring until d'Arnaud returns and the lineup gets its footing back.