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Freddie Freeman

Dodgers Notes: Knack, Snell, Gonsolin, Freeman

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The Dodgers recalled Landon Knack to start Wednesday’s series finale against the Nationals. The 27-year-old righty was hit hard, surrendering five runs on four hits and four walks. L.A. nevertheless managed a 6-5 win to avoid a sweep. Manager Dave Roberts said postgame that Knack will stick in the rotation for at least one more turn, as he’ll start at some point in next week’s series against the Rockies (relayed by Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic).

Knack bounced between the big league roster and Triple-A Oklahoma City throughout last season. He managed a 3.65 ERA across 69 innings as a rookie. Knack fanned 24.1% of opponents against a tidy 6.3% walk rate, but he allowed home runs at an elevated rate of 1.83 per nine innings. He’d made a two-inning relief appearance during the opening Tokyo Series. This was his first start of 2025.

The rotation spot opened when Blake Snell landed on the injured list over the weekend with shoulder inflammation. Testing has not revealed any structural damage. Roberts said on Tuesday that the two-time Cy Young winner will resume throwing at the beginning of next week (via Jack Harris of The Los Angeles Times). The injury did not require any kind of injection. The Dodgers haven’t provided a return timetable, but it appears to be a relatively minor concern — at least as far as shoulder injuries go.

Knack probably won’t hold a rotation spot for the entirety of Snell’s IL stint. Tony Gonsolin was battling for the final rotation spot until he tweaked his back lifting weights late in Spring Training. He opened the season on the IL as a result, but he has gotten through two rehab appearances without issue. Gonsolin tossed 46 pitches over 3 1/3 dominant innings in a start for OKC tonight. He allowed only one hit and walk apiece while recording seven strikeouts. He’ll make at least one more Triple-A start but should be activated within the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Freddie Freeman will evidently be able to return from his injured list stay without a rehab stint. Roberts said this afternoon that he anticipates the Dodgers will reinstate the star first baseman before Friday’s series opener against the Cubs (via Sonja Chen of MLB.com). It’ll be a minimal 10-day IL stay after Freeman suffered a right ankle sprain. Enrique Hernández has played first in his absence. The utilityman has a bizarre .103/.163/.410 batting line over 43 plate appearances. Hernández only has four hits all season and they’ve all been home runs.

Dodgers Place Freddie Freeman On Injured List

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April 4: Catcher Hunter Feduccia was recalled today as the corresponding move, per a club announcement.

April 3: The Dodgers announced that they’ve placed Freddie Freeman on the 10-day injured list with a right ankle sprain. The placement is retroactive to March 31, so Freeman will be eligible to return a week from today.

Freeman has not played since Saturday. Manager Dave Roberts told reporters that the star first baseman tweaked his ankle when he slipped in the shower (via Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic). Freeman played through an ankle sprain down the stretch and throughout last year’s playoff run. He had a monster World Series despite the injury but nevertheless required surgery in early December. That procedure didn’t prevent him from starting the season, but the recent shower slip will require at least another week of rest.

IL placements can be backdated by up to three days. That the Dodgers elected not to place Freeman on the IL right away suggests they didn’t consider this a significant injury. It was enough to send him for an extremely rare IL stint though. Freeman last went on the shelf in 2020 for a positive virus test. His most recent non-illness IL stay came back in 2017, when a fracture in his left wrist knocked him out for more than two months.

Enrique Hernández drew into the lineup at first base for the Dodgers’ series against the Braves. While he went a combined 1-11, the Dodgers swept Atlanta to move to 8-0. The four top teams in the NL West have all gotten out to excellent starts — the 7-0 Padres join the Dodgers as the only remaining undefeated clubs — but the Dodgers obviously have plenty of talent to weather what seems likely to be a short-term absence.

Los Angeles didn’t announce a corresponding roster move. They’re off today, so there wasn’t any urgency to fill the spot, but waiting until tomorrow to place Freeman on the IL would have pushed back his retroactive date by a day. They can recall another hitter leading up to their weekend series in Philadelphia.

Latest On Shohei Ohtani’s Pitching Rehab

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Shohei Ohtani pitched off a mound for the first time this spring today, as noted by Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic. The bullpen session consisted of 14 throws, all of which were fastballs. Ohtani’s velocity sat 92-94 mph, which is well below his usual mid-90s velocity but not surprising for a pitcher who is still several months away from pitching in a big league game.

The news that Ohtani has resumed throwing and that he largely looked good doing so is surely heartening for Dodgers fans, but his timeline for a return to the mound remains unchanged. The club’s plan appears to be for Ohtani to join the club’s rotation at some point in May, with a five-man rotation set to be used by the Dodgers until then. As relayed by Ardaya, manager Dave Roberts indicated that Ohtani could resume facing live hitters before the club flies out to Tokyo for an early start to the regular season against the Cubs next month.

While the early returns of Ohtani’s rehab process are encouraging, plenty of questions remain between now and Ohtani’s first official pitching appearance in a Dodgers uniform. Ohtani’s rehab process as a pitcher will have to be balanced against his duties as the Dodgers’ everyday DH, creating a unique conundrum for the Dodgers to try and work through. The Angels dealt with a similar problem when Ohtani attempted to resume pitching in 2020 following Tommy John surgery, and that ended disastrously as he recorded just five outs and turned in his only below-average season as a big league hitter.

That said, it appears the Dodgers aren’t likely to send Ohtani on a rehab assignment before he makes his return to pitching. While rehab assignments are customary for pitchers coming off major surgeries, Ardaya notes that the club has had success returning Clayton Kershaw to the big league mound without a rehab assignment in the past after lengthy stays on the injured list, and he relays that pitching coach Mark Prior emphasized that rehabbing and hitting at the same time “seemed to turn out pretty well” for the reigning NL MVP last year. As an alternative to a rehab assignment, the plan seems to be for the Dodgers to hold simulated games for Ohtani before the Dodgers’ regularly scheduled game for that day begins, allowing him to face live hitters in the form of either players from the big league bench or minor league hitters.

Ohtani and the Dodgers will be looking to strike this balance all while Ohtani looks to put offseason surgery behind him. Ohtani was injured sliding into second base during Game Two of the World Series last year and ultimately ended up going under the knife to repair a torn labrum after dislocating his shoulder on that aforementioned slide. Former Dodgers outfielder Cody Bellinger famously struggled to return to form as a hitter after a similar injury, and Ardaya notes Ohtani has admitted that even as camp opens up he’s still dealing with a somewhat limited range of motion in his shoulder. Still, there’s a month left until the Dodgers begin the regular season in Tokyo, so Ohtani still has plenty of time to get his swing into a good place even as he balances that with rehabbing as a pitcher.

Ohtani wasn’t the only player in Dodgers camp to receive a notable injury update today. as noted by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, veteran first baseman Freddie Freeman told reporters he was “almost a full player” at this point in his rehab process after undergoing offseason ankle surgery. Freeman has resumed doing everything but running at this point, and while he’s not expected to be ready for the start of Spring Training games later this month Freeman emphasized that he remains on track to start the season in the lineup for the Dodgers in Japan.

Dodgers Notes: Freeman, Glasnow, Rojas, Sheehan

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Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman led his team to the World Series championship in 2024, with series MVP honors to prove it. That postseason run came at the expense of his health, however, as he played through a bone bruise and sprain in his right ankle that eventually required him to undergo surgery in early December. At the time, the Dodgers suggested that Freeman would be able to “participate in baseball activities” during Spring Training, but that vague timeline did not set a date for when he would be ready to participate in games again.

Freeman himself offered a bit of clarity on the situation to reporters during the Dodgers FanFest event today. As noted by Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, Freeman has resumed swinging a bat again but has yet to start running to this point. With the start of Spring Training a matter of weeks away, it’s hardly a surprise that Freeman indicated he won’t be available for the first games of Cactus League play this spring. Freeman did say that he “expects” to be ready for the start of the Dodgers’ season in Tokyo on March 18, though of course with that just six weeks away a setback in his recovery could alter that timeline.

That Freeman should be ready for the start of the season is surely a relief for Dodgers fans, though it would hardly be a surprise if the club opted to be as careful with him as possible in order to ensure he starts the season on the right foot with as good of health as possible. The slugger’s .282/.378/.476 slash line in 147 games for the Dodgers in his age-34 campaign last year was a modest step back from his back-to-back top-4 MVP finishes in 2022 and ’23 but was still more than enough to put him on the shortlist for the very best first basemen in the sport last year. Freeman once again figures to help anchor the Dodgers lineup alongside fellow former MVPs Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani in 2025. It’s a lineup that largely looks the same as last year, though Michael Conforto has replaced Jason Heyward in the outfield mix while Hyeseong Kim has taken over for Gavin Lux at the keystone.

Aside from Freeman, however, the club appears to be generally healthy headed into Spring Training when looking at players who are expected to impact the 2025 team on Opening Day. Right-hander Tyler Glasnow was shut down in August due to an elbow sprain, but Dodgers Insider relays that Glasnow spoke at today’s fan event as well. The right-hander revealed that he’s resumed throwing and is feeling “as good as [he’s] ever felt.” The 31-year-old is one of the most dominant hurlers in the sport when healthy, but his 22 starts last year were a career high as he’s constantly battled injury woes throughout his career. With Glasnow seemingly poised to be ready for the start of the season, the Dodgers will surely hope that their plans to use a six-man rotation this year in order to accommodate Ohtani in his return to pitching can help Glasnow stay healthy enough to pitch for them in the postseason this year after he missed last year’s World Series run.

Turning back to the position player side of things, veteran infielder Miguel Rojas joined Freeman in playing through injury during the postseason and underwent sports hernia surgery after the season concluded. As noted by Ardaya, Rojas spoke about his recovery process during today’s fan event and revealed that he suffered from a post-surgery infection that delayed his ability to rehab for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, that now appears to be behind him as Rojas indicated he remains on track to be fully ready for Spring Training when it begins later this month. The addition of Kim in conjunction with Betts’s move back to the infield leaves Rojas without an everyday role headed into 2025, but he managed to carve out a role for himself in 103 games under similar circumstances last year despite a trip to the injured list.

As for players who aren’t expected to be ready for Opening Day, Ardaya notes that right-hander Emmet Sheehan provided an update on his recovery from Tommy John surgery for the first time since he went under the knife last May. The right-hander has resumed throwing off a mound at this point in his rehab and added that he hopes to start pitching in rehab games come May or June. That timeline would put him on the mound for those games just over a year after his surgery, putting him more or less on track for a normal recovery and to be a depth option out of the rotation or bullpen for L.A. in the second half this year.

Freddie Freeman Undergoes Ankle Surgery

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The Dodgers announced today that first baseman Freddie Freeman underwent surgery on his right ankle “consisting of debridement and the removal of loose bodies.” They added that Freeman is “expected to be able to participate in baseball activities during Spring Training” though it’s unclear how impacted his offseason will be.

Freeman’s ankle injury was a key storyline over the past few months. He suffered a sprain in late September in one of the final regular season games of the 2024 campaign, which made Freeman’s status a frequent talking point throughout the postseason.

He continued to hang onto a roster spot with the club as they advanced from round to round, but was clearly not playing 100%. With Shohei Ohtani in the designated hitter slot, Freeman even had to play the field on many occasions while obviously playing through pain. During the postseason, he revealed that he was dealing with a bone bruise in addition to the sprain and would have missed four to six weeks if the issue had cropped up during the regular season. As if that wasn’t enough, Jeff Passan of ESPN later reported that Freeman suffered broken costal cartilage in his sixth rib just as the postseason was beginning, which would normally require a monthslong absence.

Despite those issues, Freeman went to have a postseason for the ages. He wasn’t great in the NLDS nor the NLCS but went complete supernova in the World Series. He hit a walkoff grand slam, the first in World Series history, to lift the Dodgers in game one. He then went on to hit a home run in the next three games as well. He set a World Series record with 12 runs batted in and slashed .300/.364/1.000, helping the Dodgers win the title and earning himself World Series MVP honors in the process.

Unsurprisingly, the attention has now shifted to getting him healthy for 2025 and it has been determined that surgery was necessary. It seems he will have enough time to be healthy for next year, though it wouldn’t be disastrous for the Dodgers if he hit some snags and ended up needing to miss a bit of time at the start of the 2025 season. Third baseman Max Muncy is capable of playing first base, while multi-positional players like Miguel Rojas or Chris Taylor could cover the hot corner.

Dodgers Notes: Hernandez, Flaherty, Kershaw, Freeman

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Teoscar Hernandez and trade deadline pickup Jack Flaherty are heading to free agency after playing major roles in the Dodgers’ World Series triumph, and both players told reporters (including MLB.com’s Juan Toribio and SportsNet LA’s David Vassegh) that they would like to return to Los Angeles for an encore.

“My hopes are really high.  Like I’ve said before, the Dodgers are the priority, obviously,” Hernandez said.  “I’m going to do everything in my power to come back….I want us to be here.  I want us to be part of this.  I have so many good memories here.  I’ve learned a lot as a player, as a person.  It feels great to be part of this.”

“I love this city.  I never want to leave,” Flaherty told Vassegh, with the words perhaps carrying a bit of extra weight since Flaherty was born in Burbank and grew up in Los Angeles.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that Flaherty would give the Dodgers a hometown discount, though naturally playing close to home gives the Dodgers (and theoretically the Angels) an extra edge that other potential free-agent suitors can’t match.

It isn’t surprising to hear players on any team (whether world champions or not) express an open desire to re-sign with their current teams, and feelings could change as the free agent market develops.  Of course, winning a title again underlines the fact that L.A. should be a contending team for years to come, giving the Dodgers even more flexibility in picking and choosing how they’ll construct their 2025 roster.

Re-signing Hernandez would bring another big bat back into the lineup and check off the left field question mark in one fell swoop.  Though the slugger is entering his age-32 season, he is also coming off one of the best years of his nine MLB seasons, and he further showed his value with a big playoff performance.  On the flip side, Hernandez would surely reject a qualifying offer, putting the Dodgers in line for a compensatory draft pick if Hernandez signed elsewhere.  If Los Angeles wanted to give Andy Pages more playing time in left field or perhaps keep the position open for another outfielder (even a big name like Juan Soto), the Dodgers could opt to walk away from Hernandez and just view their one-year alliance as a total win for both parties.

Both Hernandez and Flaherty were looking to bounce back after shaky 2024 seasons, and Flaherty likewise answered some critics by posting a 3.17 ERA across 162 combined regular-season innings with the Tigers and Dodgers.  The right-hander’s postseason performance was a lot more inconsistent, yet Flaherty was important simply because he was a proper starting pitcher within the injury-ravaged Dodgers’ staff.  On paper, most of Los Angeles’ injured pitchers will be ready to go by Opening Day 2025, yet the team will surely look to solidify this group with at least one other starter to provide some durability as well as quality innings.

Clayton Kershaw is one of those pitchers with a murky health status, as the longtime Dodger ace is set to undergo a pair of surgeries on his left knee and toe.  Kershaw pitched only 30 regular-season innings in 2024 due to bone spurs in his toe, his recovery from a shoulder surgery from last November, and this heretofore unknown torn meniscus in his left knee.

The southpaw has already said he is planning to pitch in 2025, and reiterated to The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya and other reporters that “I’ll be back, somehow” for an 18th season with the Dodgers.  This might not necessarily come to pass, however, just by Kershaw exercising his $10MM player option for 2025, as Kershaw might also look to work out a new contract with L.A. that would presumably give both gives some flexibility for the future.  Several of the Dodgers’ extensions in recent years have involved tacking an extra option year or two onto a shorter-term deal, so it seems quite possible the club could again explore such a contract with Kershaw.

In other Dodger news, the end of the playoffs also acts as the time when players traditionally come clean about any hidden injuries they’ve been playing through in October.  It was already known that Freddie Freeman was playing despite an ankle sprain and bone bruise, yet ESPN’s Jeff Passan writes that Freeman also suffered broken costal cartilage in his rib while taking batting practice just prior to the start of the Dodgers’ NLDS matchup with the Padres.

The first baseman still played in four of the five games in that series as well as four of the Dodgers’ six NLCS games with the Mets, though Freeman was hitting only .219/.242/.219 in his first 33 playoff plate appearances.  The four days’ off between the end of the NLCS and the start of the World Series provided Freeman with a chance to fully rest and reset, and he somewhat miraculously felt much better heading into Game 1, when he kicked off his World Series MVP performance.

Dodgers Win World Series

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The Dodgers are champions. Los Angeles stormed back from a 5-0 deficit tonight (with some help from the Yankees’ defense) for a 7-6 win to take it in five games. No team had ever come back from five runs down in a World Series clincher. As expected, Freddie Freeman won the Series MVP award.

It’s their second title in five seasons. While the pandemic restrictions limited their celebration in 2020, they’ll get to host a parade this time. The Dodgers were baseball’s best team in the regular season, leading MLB with 98 wins while outscoring opponents by 179 runs. There were nevertheless questions heading into October about whether a pitching staff battered by injuries could hold up.

The run to a championship wasn’t without adversity. L.A. found itself on the brink of elimination in its Division Series against the Padres. San Diego took a 2-1 series lead. The Friars had two chances to close it out, but Dodger pitching blanked them in consecutive games to advance. That was their only brush with elimination. Los Angeles took a 3-1 lead in the NL Championship Series against the Mets before closing it out in six.

They got out to an even better start to the World Series. Freeman’s two-out, walk-off grand slam off Nestor Cortes pulled them to a Game 1 victory. They survived a ninth-inning scare in Game 2 to take a 2-0 lead to the Bronx. Los Angeles took Game 3 in a 4-2 win that wasn’t as close as the score suggested. The stranglehold on the series gave them three more clinching chances after Tuesday’s blowout loss.

For a while, it looked like tonight would be another easy defeat. An early offensive barrage from the Yankees knocked Jack Flaherty out of the game in the second inning. The Series looked to be headed back to L.A. until a defensive collapse by the Yanks in the fifth inning. Errors by Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe helped load the bases before a critical two-out miscommunication between Anthony Rizzo and Gerrit Cole that extended the inning. Hits by Freeman and Teoscar Hernández plated four more runs to tie it.

While the Yankees pulled back in front with a 6-5 lead, the Dodgers would take control in the eighth inning. The bottom half of the L.A. order loaded the bases against Tommy Kahnle. Sacrifice flies from Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts put them in front. Blake Treinen navigated a tricky bottom half of the eighth. After churning through their high-leverage bullpen arms, Dave Roberts turned to Walker Buehler for the ninth. Buehler easily set down the bottom third of the Yankee order, securing the title with consecutive punchouts of Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo.

Freeman homered in each of the first four games. While he didn’t extend that streak tonight, his two-run single in the fifth was pivotal. He wins his second championship, while Betts and injured reliever Joe Kelly join Royals’ reliever Will Smith as active players with three titles (h/t to Matt Eddy of Baseball America). Among the first-time champions: Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández*, Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and NLCS MVP Tommy Edman.

It’s the eighth title in franchise history, the Dodgers’ first in a full season since 1988. The organization pulls even with the Giants for fifth on the all-time leaderboard. They’re now one away from the A’s and Red Sox, who are tied for third with nine rings apiece. The Yankees remain on 27 championships for at least another season, while the Cardinals are in second with 11 titles.

* Hernández was on the 2017 Astros but was traded midseason.

Image courtesy of Imagn.

Postseason Notes: Dodgers, Cortes, Senga

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The Dodgers are headed back to L.A. for Game 6 of the NLCS with a 3-2 lead, but the club nonetheless faces some question marks regarding who exactly they’ll have available tomorrow. Catcher Will Smith departed Game 5 early after taking a pitch off of his glove hand during the game, but per Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times x-rays on Smith’s hand came back negative and he’s expected to be available for Game 6. That’s surely a relief for the Dodgers, given that Smith (111 wRC+) is a massive improvement over back-up Austin Barnes (86 wRC+) with the bat.

Unfortunately, things are less certain regarding first baseman Freddie Freeman. The veteran star has struggled at the dish of late while playing through a sprained ankle, with just one hit in his last 15 at-bats. While Jack Harris of the L.A. Times notes that manager Dave Roberts noted that Freeman is expected to play in tomorrow’s game just as Smith is, there was more uncertainty regarding Freeman’s availability as Roberts said he did not plan to decide if Freeman will start today and that whether or not he’s in the lineup tomorrow will be determined by how the veteran feels tomorrow. Should Freeman wind up missing tomorrow’s game, Max Muncy would likely slide from third base to first, opening up the hot corner for Enrique Hernandez and center field for Andy Pages.

More from around the playoff clubs…

  • Yankees left-hander Nestor Cortes was left off the club’s roster for the ALCS as he rehabs a late-season flexor strain that’s left him sidelined for nearly a month now. Fortunately, Cortes now appears closer than ever to a return to action. As noted by The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner, the southpaw has continued to progress well and figures to have just one hurdle left to clear in his rehab: a live bullpen session in the coming days. If Cortes gets through that bullpen successfully, Kirschner suggests that Cortes is “expected” to be on the club’s World Series roster should they advance. The return of Cortes would surely be a huge boost to the Yankees’ bullpen mix, particularly after they lost right-hander Ian Hamilton for the World Series yesterday due to a calf injury. Cortes would also add another lefty option to the club’s relief corps. The club currently only features Tim Hill and Tim Mayza as lefty relief options, the latter has allowed four of eight batters to reach base to this point in the postseason.
  • Moving on to the Mets, the club opted to give the ball to left-hander David Peterson rather than right-hander Kodai Senga in Game 5 yesterday, and that decision seems to leave the door open to a role change for Senga late in the series. As relayed by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com, manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters today that he “won’t hesitate” to hand Senga the ball in a relief role in tomorrow’s game despite Senga having been exclusively used as a starter throughout his MLB career to this point. With Senga evidently available out of the pen, the Mets may have a potentially dynamic relief weapon on their hands who’s capable of pitching multiple innings as a bridge to closer Edwin Diaz. Of course, that would require Senga to have ironed out the issues that saw him walk four batters and allow three runs in 1 1/3 innings of work against the Dodgers earlier in this series.

Ben Casparius Replaces Michael Grove On Dodgers’ NLDS Roster

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The Dodgers and Major League Baseball both announced an injury-related substitution on Los Angeles’ NLDS roster.  Right-hander Michael Grove has been removed in favor of fellow righty Ben Casparius.  No specifics were given on Grove’s injury within the press release, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including David Vassegh of 570 AM Radio) that Grove is dealing with a shoulder injury.

Grove came out of the bullpen in Sunday’s Game 2, and he allowed a Xander Bogaerts solo homer before striking out Jake Cronenworth to end the top of the eighth inning.  These were Grove’s only two batters faced, and while the inning break seemed like the reason for his removal from the game, it could be that his shoulder problem necessitated another pitching change.  With the Dodgers down 7-1 after eight innings, a healthy Grove might’ve eaten one more inning of mop-up work.

Working as a starter, reliever, and swingman since his MLB debut in 2022, Grove has a 5.48 ERA over 149 1/3 career innings in the majors, including a 5.12 ERA in 51 frames in 2024.  His secondary numbers paints a somewhat more promising picture than his ERA, though Grove has hurt his cause by being a little homer-prone.  Injuries have also been a factor, as he has missed time in each of the two seasons with lat-related issues, as well as a groin strain that sidelined him for about six weeks of the 2023 campaign.  The Dodgers have also liberally moved Grove up and down between the majors and Triple-A, so he hasn’t had a ton of time to settle into a big league role.

League rules dictate that if a team makes an injury substitution on a series roster, the injured player is also ineligible for the following series.  Grove therefore isn’t able to play in the NLCS if the Dodgers advance past the Padres, though his health is the larger concern in general, given the ominous nature of shoulder-related discomfort.  Los Angeles has already had to navigate a ton of pitching injuries throughout the season and into October, so Grove’s absence leaves the club short another arm.

It does provide quite the opportunity for Casparius, who only just made his big league debut back on August 31.  A fifth-round pick for the Dodgers in the 2021 draft, Casparius has pitched in all of three MLB games, and he has a 2.16 ERA and an impressive 32.4% strikeout rate over 8 1/3 innings.  He also has a 10.8% walk rate, which tracks with the rather so-so control Casparius exhibited over four minor league seasons.  The Dodgers aren’t likely to use Casparius in any high-leverage situations during the NLDS, and it is possible he doesn’t see any action at all in the series barring another lopsided score.

In other notable injury news for L.A., Freddie Freeman is in tonight’s starting lineup for Game 3.  Freeman’s attempts to play through a severe left ankle sprain and bone bruise seemed to take a downturn when he made an early exit from Game 2, but Roberts told reporters (including Sportnet’s Hazel Mae) that Freeman completed his pregame preparations without issue.  “It’s a go as of now….unless I hear otherwise, he’s going to be in there,” Roberts said.

Freddie Freeman, Xander Bogaerts Leave NLDS Game 2 Due To Injuries

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The Padres hit six home runs in what turned into a rout of a 10-2 victory in Game 2 of their NLDS matchup with the Dodgers, knotting the series 1-1 as the scene shifts to San Diego for Games 3 and 4 on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Neither club emerged from Game 2 unscathed, however, as both Freddie Freeman (left ankle discomfort) and Xander Bogaerts (hamstring cramp) made early exits due to injury.

Freeman’s exit is the less surprising of the two, as the first baseman’s attempts to play through both a bone bruise and a sprain of his left ankle has become one of the series’ chief storylines.  After going 2-for-5 and even stealing a base in the Dodgers’ Game 1 victory, Freeman went 0-for-2 tonight before he was replaced in the field heading into the top of the sixth.  Freeman was due up to the plate again in the bottom of the sixth and L.A. was trailing only 3-1 after five innings, yet he was clearly not feeling well enough to continue playing.  Post-game, manager Dave Roberts told Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times (X link) and other reporters that the team would know more about Freeman’s status after working out tomorrow during the club’s off-day.

Freeman suffered what was initially diagnosed as just an ankle sprain on September 26, in the Dodgers’ fourth-last game of the regular season.  X-rays were negative, but Freeman revealed to reporters that the combination of the sprain and the bone bruise would normally sideline him for 4-to-6 weeks if this was the regular season.  However, on just eight full days of rest, Freeman returned to the field in Game 1, though it wasn’t clear until just a few hours before game time if the first baseman would indeed be ready to go.

Bogaerts seemingly suffered his injury while hitting a foul ball during his plate appearance in the eighth inning, yet the shortstop seemingly looked no worse for wear in hitting a solo homer.  The Padres ended the frame with a 7-1 lead, which perhaps gave the club a little more flexibility to replace Bogaerts in the field with Tyler Wade in the top of the eighth.

Monday is an off-day in the series, so Freeman and Bogaerts will get some built-in time to recuperate before play resumes.  While Bogaerts’ cramp doesn’t seem overly serious, Wade is the natural replacement at shortstop if Bogaerts isn’t ready for Tuesday’s Game 3.  If Bogaerts can hit but not field, the Padres can use Wade at shortstop, Luis Arraez at first base, and Bogaerts could conceivably act as the designated hitter.

Shohei Ohtani’s presence in the DH spot gives the Dodgers no such flexibility with Freeman, as he’d have to play first base if he is to be part of the team’s starting lineup.  If he can’t start, Freeman would therefore seemingly be limited to pinch-hit duty, which then necessitates a larger shuffle of the Dodgers’ lineup.  Obviously losing Freeman under any circumstance is bad news for Los Angeles, but losing a key left-handed bat will hamper the Dodgers against Game 3 starter Michael King (a right-hander), and L.A. is lacking in left-handed bench depth.

As a reminder, teams can make injury replacements to a series roster, but at a significant longer-term cost.  Replaced players would not only be out for the rest of the NLDS, but they also wouldn’t be able to participate in the NLCS if their team was to advance to the next round.  This rule is surely weighing on the Dodgers in particular as they figure out Freeman’s status, though it would seem as if Freeman would have to have seriously re-aggravated his injury for L.A. to remove him from the roster altogether.

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