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Longtime Ray Matt Joyce adjusting to life with Angels

 
Matt Joyce, in his first season with the Angels after six with the Rays, has been heating up lately but is still batting just .186 with four homers and 17 RBIs. He admits that he has been putting too much pressure on himself.
Matt Joyce, in his first season with the Angels after six with the Rays, has been heating up lately but is still batting just .186 with four homers and 17 RBIs. He admits that he has been putting too much pressure on himself.
Published June 2, 2015

ANAHEIM, Calif. — After spending the past six seasons with his hometown Rays, Matt Joyce wasn't sure exactly what to make of playing against them this week for the first time.

Except for this:

"Man, it's weird to look at a team that you played for a year ago, and not know half the guys on the team," Joyce said. "It's really weird."

Joyce was part of the front end of that massive makeover that saw 10 key players from the 2014 team shipped out. He was sent to the Angels for reliever Kevin Jepsen.

He wasn't surprised to be dealt, understanding that his arbitration-driven salary — which ended up at $4.75 million — made him too expensive for the Rays to keep, especially since they used him only in a part-time role, rarely playing vs. lefties.

"Just knowing how the Rays operate," Joyce said, "I was almost expecting it before it happened, so I tried to get as mentally prepared as I could."

Still, that didn't make it any easier a transition. Nor did the previous experience of having been traded in December 2008 from the Tigers to the Rays.

As much as Joyce, 30, knew not to put too much pressure on himself with his new squad, where he was expected to provide support to a lineup that features Albert Pujols and Mike Trout, he did exactly that.

And the result, even after recent upswing, are some rather poor numbers — going into play Monday with a .186 average, four homers, 17 RBIs and a .591 on-base plus slugging percentage.

"There was definitely that sense of wanting to do too much, putting too much pressure on myself, trying too hard and stuff like that," Joyce said. "It's just weird how stuff like that happens."

Worse, Joyce made headlines for an innocent off-field mistake, getting pulled from the lineup after showing up after the scheduled reporting time for a May 18 holiday matinee game in Toronto he had assumed was at night. "That was the worst feeling ever," Joyce said, though he had some fun with it, posting an apology on Twitter that included a photo of his iPhone with six alarms set.

The slow start — 16-for-108 with a homer and 10 RBIs in his first 33 games — aside, Joyce said the transition to the Angels has been okay. The housing costs were a little eye-opening (even the place he rented closer to the stadium than the beach to alleviate traffic issues), but he enjoys the area and the grass field, and he said playing for Angels manager Mike Scioscia is similar in some ways to Joe Maddon.

Fiancee Brittany Svendgard moved west with Joyce, though his father, sister and other relatives and friends are all still back in the Tampa Bay area, leaving Joyce looking forward to the Angels' visit to the Trop next week.

"The biggest adjustment has probably just been being away from friends and family," Joyce said. "You get accustomed and comfortable to a certain spot. I was there with the Rays for six years, so I was definitely comfortable in that setting. … You come to a new team, you have to adjust to a new group of guys, a new setting, a new atmosphere. But it really hasn't been that difficult."

Joyce knows there is likely more transition ahead, as he is a free agent after this season.

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"I try not to think about it," he said. "I don't know what's going to happen in the future, I don't know where I'm going to be next year. Obviously you can't change the past and the start that I had (this season), but I really try to just stay here, stay present, stay in the moment, do what I can today. All the crazy (stuff) Joe used to talk about about controlling the controllables — it's quirky, but it's true."

Contact Marc Topkin at mtopkin@tampabay.com. Follow @TBTimes_Rays.