Schanuel joins the IL, and the first-base depth chart gets very thin very fast

Nolan Schanuel landed on the 10-day injured list Saturday with a right intercostal muscle strain, becoming the 11th Angel on the IL. He's 24, he was hitting .276 with 32 RBIs in 71 games, and he was one of the few position players who had been a reliable presence all season. Intercostal strains are notoriously slow to heal — the ribcage is involved in every swing, every throw — so the 10-day designation may be optimistic.

The depth chart behind him is not encouraging. Trey Mancini, who had been the nominal backup at first, retired last week. That leaves Vaughn Grissom as the next man up, a utility player being asked to cover a position by default rather than design. Jeimer Candelario has been playing first since arriving and has been the team's best hitter since the deadline, so that alignment likely holds — but it removes any flexibility Anaheim had at the position.

Eleven players on the IL at 44-56 with 62 games left is less a crisis than a condition at this point. The rotation was already hollowed by the August 3 trades and the injuries to Kikuchi and Kochanowicz. The coaching staff was reshuffled two weeks ago. Schanuel going down is one more thing to absorb for a team that has spent the second half absorbing things.