Dodgers manager Dave Roberts tells reporters, including Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, they are going to place right-hander Daniel Hudson on the injured list due to a sprained MCL in his right knee. Hudson missed significant time last year and this year due to a torn ACL, though that was in his left knee. Roberts says Hudson will miss “a significant amount of time” but they are “hopeful” he can return this season, per Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times (Twitter links). Roberts tells Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times that Hudson will miss at least a month or two. The Dodgers subsequently announced the move and that Yency Almonte was placed on the paternity list with Nick Robertson and Alex Vesia recalled in corresponding moves.
It remains to be seen exactly how much time Hudson will miss but it’s undeniably a brutal blow. It was just over a year ago, June 24 of 2022, that Hudson tore the ACL in his left knee, which wiped out the remainder of his 2022 season. That injury kept him on the injured list for the first few months of this year, with the righty just being activated a week ago. He made three scoreless appearances for the club in the past week but is now facing yet another significant absence.
Prior to last year’s injury, Hudson was on pace to have one of his best seasons as a reliever. He had a 2.22 ERA through 25 appearances, striking out 30.9% of batters faced while walking just 5.2% and getting grounders on 53.4% of balls in play. Despite the injury, the Dodgers showed faith that Hudson would be able to come back and contribute in the future. In September of last year, they agreed to an extension, picking up their $6.5MM club option for 2023 while tacking on a 2024 option as well.
That option comes with a $6.5MM base and can reach $7.3MM based on appearances. The exact nature of those escalators aren’t known but it seems fair to conclude he won’t trigger any of them with his limited work this year. The club will then have to decide whether or not to trigger the option, which will undoubtedly be impacted by his health status as the season winds down.
For the club, this is yet another in an extensive series of injuries to their pitching staff. The starting rotation has Walker Buehler, Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw, Ryan Pepiot and Noah Syndergaard currently on the injured list, whereas the relief corps has lost Tyler Cyr, J.P. Feyereisen, Shelby Miller, Jimmy Nelson, Alex Reyes, Blake Treinen and now Hudson to the IL. Despite all those pitching injuries, the club is 48-38 and in possession of a National League Wild Card spot. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman already admitted that the rash of injuries made it more likely the club will seek out pitching reinforcements at the upcoming trade deadline and Hudson’s injury would seemingly only increase those chances.
Omg
This team is so hapless it’s kinda funny. Fourth place finish soon.
Division winners
I know you’re just a Dodgers troll but I’ll take the bait…you do realize that this team has been absolutely demolished with injuries and is still ahead of the Giants right?
There’s no bait, simpleton. Being 1.5 ahead of the Giants in early July isn’t some staggering feat. I’d be shocked if LA wins the division, even though it’s super weak (again). You people fall for the same media BS every year. They won a million games last year and choked as usual…
The staggering feat here is your spelling. Who knew you knew not to spell it feet?
This clock is taking pitchers out quick
Evidence???
30% more player days on the IL this season over last season? That might be a good indication that something that changed can be correlated with the increase in pitching injuries. Whether it caused the increase remains to be seen with larger sample sizes .
Correlation doesn’t equal causation
I think he said that.
“He” is you lmfao.
Clock is taking out pitchers quick
Son of a batch of cookies
Shut the front door!
Cheese and rice!
Committee no more.
No Hudson controversy talk here anymore, apparently.
Maybe the sisters of perpetual darkness can pray for him?
Give my Cubbies a shout we are open for business
The clock has nothing to do Hudson he is a
Guarantee to get hurt like Death and Taxes.
Dodgers are having no luck with pitcher health.
Maybe the sisters of perpetual darkness can pray for them?
You must really want them back at the stadium because you keep saying this let’s get the a luxury suite!
to be fair, when you sign essentially EVERYONE who has had injury histories in the past, they’re going to keep having injuries like before
there’s no such thing as a pitcher without an injury history
Greg Maddux. Spent 15 days total in 23 years of pitching for inflammation in his lower back.
12 guys on the IL. That is an entire pitching staff. Urias just came off it or it would be worse. Dodgers are snakebit when it comes to pitching.
You know your old when your knees start going out. It’s time for him to retire.
Brutal. Hudson was ticketed to be a really important back-end of the bullpen guy. 3 games back, gone again.
Dodgers having a really rough time with injuries, yet they’re still in a playoff spot and 1.5 games out of first. Most other teams would be completely sunk by now.
They’ve had an extremely easy schedule.
Well, with every team playing every other team now, it evens out.
Extremely is an overstatement. Lots of different ways to slice and dice it – LA are a game above .500 against teams above .500 this season. ARI are exactly .500 against .500+.
LA’s run differential is almost double that of ARI’s, despite being 1.5 games behind.
Again, most other teams with this amount of injuries, would be sunk. An entire pitching staff on the IL is a huge blow.
Yeah, I disagree — it’s not very impressive. The Braves are missing 2 Cy Young candidates & are 30 games above 500.
Good thing no one cares what you think
You cared enough to reply, dumdum.
Here comes Chris Flexen!
Is any of this on how they train?
A lot of these guys that keep going down have a history of injury and they’re banking on high upside comeback, but also the need to comeback. Unfortunately, there’s a lot being snake bit this year all at the same time.
What happens when you run out of pitchers?
Then you’re basically the Rockies
ba dum bum…tsss
Bad for Daniel Hudson and even worse for Dodgers fans because they have to endure watching Nick Robertson pitch at the Major League level again.
Well at least it appears that Jimmy Nelson is getting closer. Might see him right after the All-Star break.
It speaks to the Pirates beyond-pathetic offense that this guy tried to have them tie if not win it in the 9th last night but somehow wiggled out of a bases loaded, no out jam with a fastball and a breaking ball that kept dropping in the dirt. Like bees to honey, Pirates batters couldn’t lay off or were easily fooled
He wasn’t much when he pitched here, and he isn’t much now. But he could make a career out of pitching to this lot