There had been some indication that Clayton Kershaw could be cleared to throw a bullpen session today, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya) that such a session won’t take place. Some right SI joint inflammation sent Kershaw to the 15-day injured list on May 13, and while the star left-hander has started playing catch, it appears he is still some time off from a formal bullpen.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that Kershaw will miss an overt amount of time, but as Ardaya notes, it does rule out any chance that Kershaw will miss only a 15-day minimum. While he isn’t dealing with an arm injury this time, Kershaw has dealt with enough health issues in recent years that any sort of IL stint is a concern, though the former three-time NL Cy Young Award winner has continued to pitch very well when he has been able to take the mound.
Here’s the latest on some other pitching-related injury situations from around the league…
- Michael Wacha is slated to return from the 15-day injured list and start Friday’s game, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo and other reporters. Friday is the first eligible day for Wacha’s activation, after being retroactively placed on the 15-day IL on May 5 due to left intercostal irritation. After a few rough seasons, Wacha looked to be on pace for a bounce-back performance in his first five starts with Boston, with an excellent 1.38 ERA over 26 innings.
- At the minor league level, Cora said left-hander Darwinzon Hernandez will be “down for a while” after suffering an MCL sprain in his right knee. Hernandez has a 5.95 ERA over 19 2/3 innings with Triple-A Worcester, continuing his career-long pattern of recording plenty of strikeouts but also far too many walks. Over 78 2/3 career big league frames with the Red Sox, Hernandez has a 3.66 ERA and 33.6% strikeout rate, but also a whopping 17.6% walk rate.
- The Blue Jays placed Tim Mayza on the 15-day IL Monday due to left forearm inflammation, and GM Ross Atkins told MLB.com’s Keegan Matheson and other reporters today that the initial indication is that Mayza’s issue is localized within his forearm and not his elbow. Mayza is seeing another doctor today just to be doubly safe, as the reliever underwent Tommy John surgery in September 2019 and also missed 10 days last season due to elbow inflammation. Since returning from that TJ procedure, Mayza has a 3.14 ERA over 66 innings out of Toronto’s bullpen in 2021-22.
Will be interesting to see how the LAD staff fares once they finally face more competent hitters. Philly absolutely destroyed them.
The NL West is the toughest division going right now, so your competent hitters comment is puzzling. Lowest team ERA and on a run of 31 games in 30 days with no off days.
They have an off-day tomorrow & had previous ones on May 5 & 6. Check the schedule…
As for the NL West, LA & SD have played tons of bad teams so far, so their records are heavily inflated. LA still hasn’t faced NYM, MIL, or STL at all, & when they played SF, SD, & ATL those teams were missing their best players.
It is still 31 games in 30 days because of the makeup game doubleheaders. Check the schedule.
The OP said they had “no off-days;” I just listed 3. Check the schedule.
Why are all the Dodgers fans on here so insecure? Lots of white knight behavior…
Dodger hate makes me happy.
It is still 31 games in 30 days because of the makeup game doubleheaders. Read the words.
About the attitude, not impressed.
@Neon. Selective reasoning is easy. I’m not a Dodger fan, but Milw and St Louis have had the lowest and 3rd lowest strength of schedules in MLB, so it appears they too should be your targets for inflated numbers to date, if you feel compelled to go there.
@Brew: for sure. It’s way too early to crown anyone…
IMO, if healthy, NYY and LAD are the teams to beat.
Yankees have the lowest team ERA, as of right now. Where are you getting your data? Seems off…
I think when this article came out, the Dodgers had the lowest ERA in MLB. They do as of this post as well
lol troll alert
how is a list of basic facts trolling?
Because you list your facts very selectively.
Oh, my bad. I didn’t realize facing the Dbacks 7 times was so grueling. LAD’s only win against Philly was in the game Harper missed. Seeing a pattern here?
Every division has a bottom of the barrel team (or two). Your team is either one of them, or, has likely already played said team 7 times. Your argument here sucks.
I don’t have a rooting interest in any team. It just gets old seeing corporate media shills pushing the same narratives every year. Stick to the facts.
How detached from reality are you???
Less than you, apparently. Easy on the question marks.
It’s a good thing Roberts protected Kershaw by not letting him try for the perfect game……
I felt like they should have left him in the game, for sure. Then again, it’s just possible that they understood his physical risks and limitations better than you or I do… 🙂 – and their prime consideration – keeping him in the rotation over the long haul of the full season – might actually be vindicated by his ending up on the Il. Chances are, he’s a pretty fragile pitcher, any more.
And – as far as I know – he seemed OK about coming out, probably for that exact reason.
I’m trying to figure out what period of time is considered overt.
Ha. Yeah, that was a little…opaque.
Hopefully Wacha picks right up where he left. Aside from the big goose egg Eovaldi laid last night the starting staff has been incredible
Rsox – I think you have to compare the Red Sox rotation to the rest of baseball to get an accurate assessment of their performance. The dead ball is making every team’s pitching look better than it is.
Boston’s SP ranks only 14th in ERA and only 21st in IP. They are mediocre, but yes they’ve performed far better than the hitters and the bullpen.
Interesting about Kershaw… I wonder if he feels getting pulled from his no hitter prevented himself from injury or if he was left in like everyone wanted to they would be saying that caused this injury. Such a double edged sword.
Even Kershaw said pulling him from that game was the right move, so be careful with saying you know what everyone wanted. It’s rare when you can say something that happened in one game caused any injury, at least to a pitcher. In Kershaw’s case we can expect his body to show the effects a lot of milage. As they’ve done in the past the Dodgers will keep close track and sit him down as often as they believe is necessary to get him through the season. That much is obvious but it still won’t stop the speculation. If there was anything to the speculation he wouldn’t be pitching this year, at least not for the Dodgers.