Joc Pederson has been sidelined for the last week due to a right hip injury, though the Dodgers outfielder made some “progress” today, manager Dave Roberts told MLB.com’s Ken Gurnick and other reporters. Pederson played catch today and took outdoor batting practice, swinging at about 75 percent effort. The team is being cautious with Pederson’s recovery, as Roberts said that they’ll check on the outfielder’s condition tomorrow before deciding on any next step. Pederson has yet to appear in a Spring Training game, and it isn’t yet known if this setback could potentially impact Pederson’s availability for the Opening Day roster.
Some rumblings from around the NL West…
- More than two weeks after suffering a fracture in his non-throwing wrist, Mike Leake hasn’t yet been cleared for game action, leading Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo to tell reporters (including Richard Morin of the Arizona Republic) that “it’s a possibility” Leake could miss some time at the start of the season. “His clock hasn’t started yet, and we know that. He hasn’t got on a mound yet but he’s working hard to make that happen as soon as possible,” Lovullo said. Any potential injured list wouldn’t be a lengthy one, yet it would keep Leake from at least two starts in Arizona’s rotation. With less than a month until the Diamondbacks’ first game, Lovullo said that Leake is “approaching” the “danger zone” of not having enough preparation time to fully ramp up prior to Opening Day.
- “I don’t think options trump our best team,” Rockies manager Bud Black said, though the Denver Post’s Kyle Newman points out that Colorado face some out-of-options decisions within their group of rotation candidates. Antonio Senzatela and Jeff Hoffman are both out of options, so they could be the most obvious candidates for the two open starting jobs if roster considerations are a big factor in the Rockies’ thinking, though Newman feels that right-handers Chi Chi Gonzalez and Peter Lambert “are near the top of the heap” for the fifth starter role. With Senzatela favored to land the fourth starting job, that could leave Hoffman as a potential odd man out.
- Gonzalez is not as out of options candidate, as Newman writes that the righty has a fourth option remaining rather than the usual three. It isn’t uncommon for players to be granted a fourth option after missing a lot of time on the injured list, and Gonzalez would certainly fit that description, as he missed all of the 2017 and 2018 seasons due to a UCL tear that required Tommy John surgery. After signing a minor league deal with Colorado last offseason, Gonzalez returned to the mound and tossed 63 innings of 5.29 ERA ball for the Rockies in 2019, also posting a 1.39 K/BB rate and 6.6 K/9.
Isn’t it Peter Lambert instead of “Ryan”?
Who is he?
Doesn’t it seem like the trend of starts not being ready to open the season. Maybe they are trying to ramp up a little early. I mean maybe focus much more on stretching then throwing gas. Just my take I’m no doctor
Merely the possibility of getting traded to the Angels is enough to make guys get injured now. They don’t even need to actually don the uni.
Lmao my exact thought.
It may be that the Dodgers are going to be investigated for withholding knowledge of damaged goods, Dodger players that are injured are being traded all jacked up to other teams. Dodgers have been trading their injured players away like Verdugo, Woods and now Pederson although Art Moreno put a stop to another attempt of another Dodger scam, by stopping the trade of an injured Pederson to the Angels.
Uh, yeah. You see there are these people we call doctors. You can look them up. Their job is to prevent “scams,” I believe you called them.
Pederson injured his side in spring training. The Angels traded would’ve happened before that
Fred……Thank you for putting an end to that stupid comment. Verdugo injured his back LAST season. That is why he did not participate in the world series last season against the Red Sox. The Red Sox knew this about Verdugo BEFORE they traded for him. Pederson did not get hurt until spring training, the trade had already been scuttled before this injury occurred.
Anybody who pays any attention to baseball outside of their own time zone knew that Verdugo was unable to play for the last two months of the season and as of early January hadn’t resumed baseball activities.
You guys are missing the point! You guys are absolutely correct about what your saying and everyone knows this but what I’m saying is there was scams that you all don’t know so absolutely you all will think I’m crazy. Just wait and you’ll see you guys are behind on the latest news like Pederson hurting himself two weeks ago. No! Pederson was hurt two months ago and the Dodgers new. If Pederson wasn’t hurt the Dodgers would never even trade him.
Nonsense. Username failure.
gotta imagine Chi Chi’s 2019 performance makes him a front runner. i dont know if either of Hoffman or Senz start with their performances on the other hand.