Joyce rebounding after tough season with Angels

PITTSBURGH — Pirates outfielder Matt Joyce entered Friday with the second-highest OPS among players with at least 75 plate appearances. He had accumulated 10 extra-base hits, three more than all of the Angels’ left fielders in less than half the playing time. And his 194 adjusted OPS was higher than even that of Mike Trout.

Yes, that Matt Joyce, who struggled so badly with the Angels last season that he wasn’t even sure he would remain employed.

“You have to be really resilient in this game, and you have to keep showing up, keep putting in the time, keep putting in the work, and keep learning,” Joyce said prior to Friday’s series opener between the Angels and Pirates at PNC Park. “It’s a really tough game sometimes, and it’s unforgiving. It’s weird. It’s a weird, strange game.”

When the Angels acquired Joyce — in a December 2014 trade that sent reliever Kevin Jepsen to the Rays — he was still only 30 years old, with a reliable track record for getting on base and mashing opposing right-handed pitchers.

But he never got right.

Joyce reached base only 14 times in 72 plate appearances in his first month with the Angels. He finished July with a .178/.274/.298 slash line and appeared in only seven games over the final two months, lost in an outfield that suddenly included midseason acquisitions David Murphy, Shane Victorino and David DeJesus.

Joyce called it “a frustrating process, but something that I learned a lot from and I will continue to learn from.”

Toward the end of the 2015 regular season, Joyce began taking lessons with private hitting instructor Craig Wallenbrock, who is based in Southern …

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