DENVER — Mookie Betts was back at shortstop and Teoscar Hernández remained in right field for the Dodgers on Tuesday, a day after two questionable fielding plays in the outfield led to two runs in a 4-3 walk-off loss to the last-place Colorado Rockies.
Hernández’s defense has increasingly become a matter of concern for manager Dave Roberts and Monday’s loss was followed by a meeting involving Roberts; Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers president of baseball operations; and Betts, who has expressed a willingness to move back to right field where he was a six-time Gold Glove winner.
Hernández is ranked 64th among National League right fielders with a defensive WAR of -0.4 and his two errors are tied for fourth-most in the league.
“He’s got to get better out there. There’s just no way to put it,” Roberts said after Monday’s game of Hernández. “It’s not a lack of effort. But, you know, we’ve just got to kind of get better. We do.”
Betts, meanwhile, twice led the American League in fielding average and putouts as the Boston Red Sox’s right fielder. But he’s played shortstop full-time this season.
“Defense is a big part of postseason baseball and winning baseball,” Roberts said.
Betts’ move to the infield has arguably weakened the Dodgers in two ways: Hernández’s defense and Betts’ offense. Playing the infield, especially shortstop, is far more taxing mentally than playing in the outfield and Betts is slashing a career-low .242/.312/.370 this season.
Moving Betts back to right field would likely mean using Alex Freeland or Miguel Rojas at shortstop, at least in the short term. Freeland played nearly 300 games at shortstop in the minors while Rojas has played more than 940 games there in the majors.
Hernández, second on the team with 74 RBIs and tied for second with 20 home runs, would then move to left field — a less-demanding position defensively than right field — in place of Michael Conforto, whose .190 batting average is the worst in the majors among players with at least 300 at-bats.
Moving Betts back to the outfield could be easier for Roberts when utility players Tommy Edman, Hyeseong Kim and Kiké Hernández return from the injured list, giving the manager more depth and flexibility. Kim, who will begin a rehab assignment this week, is the furthest along and could be back by early next week.
CINCINNATI — The Dodgers are dealing with more injuries to their lineup.
As a result, one of their top prospects could get his first big-league opportunity this week.
Alex Freeland, the top-ranked infielder in the Dodgers’ farm system, will be in Cincinnati on Tuesday in case either Tommy Edman (who had his lingering ankle injury flare up on him Sunday while rounding the bases) or Hyeseong Kim (who has been battling a shoulder issue over the last week) needs to go on the injured list, manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ Monday night win over the Reds.
“He’s going to come and we’ll see what direction we go, with who,” Roberts said. “We’re just kind of trying to figure out … if we do need to make a move for one of those guys.”
Freeland, a third-round pick in 2022 out of the University of Central Florida, is the team’s No. 3 overall prospect according to MLB Pipeline and the 35th-ranked prospect in baseball.
The 23-year-old switch-hitter has spent all season with triple-A Oklahoma City, where he has batted .253 with 12 home runs, 71 RBIs and .799 OPS in 94 games.
Now, he might get his first crack at the big-league roster, with the Dodgers facing another round of injury headaches following Monday’s game.
In the short term, Kim’s shoulder injury appears to be the more pressing issue.
The South Korean rookie has struggled mightily at the plate lately, with an 0-for-3 performance Monday leaving him just three for 24 since July 19.
“You can just see offensively with the bat, he’s just not himself right now,” Roberts said.
Dodgers infielder Hyeseong Kim, who is dealing with a shoulder injury, has struggled at the plate in recent games.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
Edman, however, represents the bigger long-term concern for the Dodgers to manage, with his ankle injury lingering since early May.
“It’s something that’s kind of always there,” Edman said. “But I would say it’s been pretty normal.”
At least it was until Sunday, when Edman said he “had a little tweak of it” while running the bases at Fenway Park.
While Edman was not available for Monday’s game, he maintained optimism he could avoid what would be a second injured list this season and be back in the lineup Tuesday.
“I don’t feel like this is that big a deal,” he said. “I was just at a point where I didn’t feel like I could run full speed today. I got some good treatment today so hopefully I’ll be back available tomorrow.”
Still, the Dodgers could decide that an extended break for the utilityman is warranted — especially since he has been unable to play outfield while trying to manage his injury.
“Obviously, if I couldn’t hit him tonight, for him to not to be able to play three innings of defense, isn’t a great feeling,” Roberts said.
Freeland will be waiting in the wings just in case.
A native of Louisville, Ken., he made a major jump up the Dodgers’ farm system last year, when he progressed from high A to triple A while batting .260 across three minor-league levels.
A disciplined hitter with 228 career walks in 345 career minor-league games, Freeland has received high marks for his defense at shortstop and third base. He also has 81 steals over his four minor-league seasons.
How will the Dodgers determine if Kim or Edman — or both — will need to go on the IL?
“That’s the thing that, it is a blurred line,” Roberts said. “The players obviously feel that they’re not hurt, where they can play and post, which is great. But the line of, are you still hurting the team, hurting yourself, that’s the thing that the organization, the training staff, we’ve got to make that decision.”
When and if they do, the Dodgers know who will be tapped as a potential replacement.
SAN FRANCISCO — The Dodgers finally looked like the Dodgers again on Friday night.
Too bad it didn’t happen until they were already down six runs.
For the first time in a week, the highest-scoring offense in baseball finally rediscovered its high-flying form, handing San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb his worst start all season while sending shivers up the spine of the orange-clad contingent at Oracle Park.
But by the time it happened, the club had already dug a hole too deep for even its star-studded lineup to climb out of, unable to completely erase an early six-run deficit in a 8-7 loss to their division rivals — sending the Dodgers to a seven-game losing streak that marks their longest skid since September 2017.
“I like the fight. I thought one through nine, there were good at-bats in there, scored some runs, had a chance to win again,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And unfortunately, on the pitching side, we just couldn’t prevent enough.”
Friday, of course, never figured to favor the Dodgers given the difference in caliber of the starting pitching matchup.
On one side stood Webb, the crafty and relentless All-Star right-hander who has largely dominated the Dodgers in his seven-year career.
On the other was Dustin May, the once-promising Dodgers right-hander who has yet to realize his tantalizing potential in what has been his first fully healthy big-league season so far.
Still, for a little while on a cold night along the San Francisco Bay, little separated the two sinker-ball specialists, the Dodgers and Giants locked in the kind of close contest that has been the hallmark of this rivalry in recent years.
In the top of the third, Shohei Ohtani even put the Dodgers in front, splashing his NL-leading 32nd home run of the season into McCovey Cove beyond right field for only the eighth splash-down home run by a Dodger player in Oracle Park history.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani tosses his bat after hitting a two-run home run in the third inning against the Giants on Friday.
(David Barreda / Los Angeles Times)
But eventually, May came unglued, giving up seven runs in less than five innings as the Giants surged to an 8-2 lead. And though the Dodgers (56-39) eventually got to within one, tagging Webb with a season-high six runs, they came up empty in their final couple trips to the plate, wasting plenty of positive subplots in another losing story.
“Today we were able to string some hits together, put some innings together,” shortstop Mookie Betts said. “But we just come up short.”
After starting his night with increased fastball velocity and ruthless assault of the strike zone, May lost his command in the fourth inning.
Dodgers pitcher Dustin May delivers against the Giants on Friday.
(David Barreda / Los Angeles Times)
Rafael Devers walked on four pitches to start the inning. Matt Chapman received another free pass despite a mid-at-bat mound visit from catcher Will Smith. And with one out, Jung Hoo Lee laced a two-run triple over the outstretched glove of Teoscar Hernández, who returned to the lineup after missing the last four games with a foot contusion but still seemed hobbled while trying to track the ball down in the right-field gap.
“Just got a little bit out of sync, couldn’t time things back up,” May said of his delivery, which has teetered between flashes of dominance and stretches of frustration during his return from a second career elbow surgery.
“During my warm-up throws in the fourth, it felt a little off. Trying to get my foot down a little earlier didn’t really help. That’s been a cue. But yeah, it just went bad.”
Things got worse in the fifth, when the Giants (52-43) plated five more while sending 10 batters to the plate.
Dominic Smith led the inning off with a homer. May then gave up a single and two walks to load the bases. The Dodgers missed their chance to escape the inning, when Hyeseong Kim failed to turn a difficult but potential inning-ending double play quickly enough at second base.
May was replaced by Anthony Banda, who was greeted with another two-run triple by Willy Adames (who had already homered to open the scoring in the second inning) and a run-scoring infield single from Lee, who outraced Banda to first base to punctuate a painfully long inning.
“To win a big-league ballgame is tough, but you’ve still got to pitch well, you’ve got to catch it and you’ve got to take good at-bats,” Roberts said. “If all three of those things don’t line up in one night, it’s hard to get a win.”
Mookie Betts grimaces in pain after being hit by a pitch in the sixth inning against the Giants on Friday night.
(David Barreda / Los Angeles Times)
It was at that point, coming off a six-game stretch in which they’d scored 10 total runs, that the Dodgers’ bats finally came to life.
In the top of the sixth, Hernández launched a two-run double that Lee couldn’t quite corral on the run at the warning track, before Michael Conforto followed with a two-run homer that chased Webb and cut the deficit to two.
In the seventh, the Dodgers struck again, when Betts slid into third after hitting another ball just beyond Lee’s reach in center and later scored on Smith’s RBI single.
“It’s definitely more encouraging,” said Betts, who has been among the coldest hitters in the Dodgers lineup lately. “I can’t speak for everyone. But I haven’t done anything this whole time … Just to get us going, get some hits there, that’s the positive that you can take out of it.”
That, however, was as close as the Dodgers got. Smith was left stranded to end the seventh. Kim’s two-out double in the eighth was squandered. And, in the most frustrating of endings, a two-on, one-out opportunity in the ninth went by the wayside when Smith rolled into a double play.
The division lead is down to four.
And as the Dodgers continue to stumble toward the All-Star break, moral victories remain the only wins in sight.
“I know it sucks, but you have to try to take some positive out of it,” Betts said. “At least we battled back.”
NEW YORK — It had been 641 days since Shohei Ohtani last threw a pitch to a live hitter from a big-league mound.
At 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, inside an empty Citi Field on a cool afternoon in Queens, he did so again — this time, for the first time, in a Dodger blue uniform.
Nineteen months removed from a second career Tommy John procedure that has limited the two-way star to hitting-only duties during his first season and a half with the Dodgers, Ohtani threw a live batting practice session on Sunday in what was the biggest step in his pitching progression yet.
In five at-bats against Hyeseong Kim, Dalton Rushing and game-planning coach JT Watkins, Ohtani threw 22 pitches. He was 94-97 mph with his fastball, and used his full repertoire, including his sweeper. He had two strikeouts and one walk. He fielded a comebacker from Kim in his first at-bat. He gave up a line drive to right then next time Kim came to the plate.
But most of all, he seemed overjoyed to be throwing in a simulated environment again, joking with coaches and laughing with teammates throughout the first of several live sessions that precede his expected return to the rotation sometime after the July All-Star break.
“He’s looking forward to pitching,” pitching coach Mark Prior said. “And I think today was great because he was able to keep the mood light, but be able to maintain real stuff. I think that’s always important. He didn’t look like he was having stress or [was] under stress to amp up, try to generate any of his power. He was loose and it was all free and easy. So that’s always a positive.”
Sunday had been a long time coming for Ohtani, the three-time MVP with a career 3.01 ERA in 86 career big-league starts.
Last year, at the outset of his pitching rehab, Ohtani progressed from simple catch play to regular bullpens by the end of the regular season. He wasn’t far off from being able to face hitters by the time the playoffs started, but the Dodgers decided to dial back his pitching progression so he could focus on his first career MLB postseason.
An offseason surgery on Ohtani’s non-throwing left shoulder further delayed his pitching plan entering spring camp this year, limiting him only to a handful of bullpens before the club departed for its season-opening trip to Japan.
Ohtani resumed bi-weekly bullpens once the regular season started — lighter sessions on Wednesdays followed by more intensive ones on the weekends — and had been increasing the number of pitches in his bullpens over recent weeks.
This past week, he also began reincorporating his sweeper for the first time since getting hurt, one of the last boxes he had to check before Sunday’s live BP.
While the Dodgers have been wary of laying out the specific checkpoints that remain before Ohtani can join the team’s rotation, manager Dave Roberts said it’s unlikely he pitches any big-league games until after the All-Star break.
“I just think that you’re talking about end of May, he’s doing his first simulated game,” Roberts said Saturday night. “And in theory, you got to build a starter up to five, six innings. And so just the natural progression, I just don’t see it being before that.”
Still, Sunday was the most tangible sign yet of Ohtani’s nearing return to pitching.
“He has taken a very methodical approach to this. We’ve tried to take a very methodical approach to this, understanding the uniqueness of the situation,” Prior said. “I will never, and I don’t think anybody in that room would ever, doubt what he can do. But, you know, still got a long way to go. We’ll see where it comes out at the end of this year.”
Four years later, the memory remains uncomfortably fresh.
The last time the Dodgers tried to defend a World Series title, they racked up 106 victories. They matched the best winning percentage in the franchise’s Los Angeles history. They had seven All-Stars and three Cy Young vote-getters.
And it still wasn’t enough to win them the National League West.
The San Francisco Giants, the Dodgers still well remember, won 107 games in the 2021 season, marking the only time in the last dozen years someone else has claimed the division crown. The Dodgers eventually knocked the Giants out of the playoffs that October, but their elongated path through the postseason as a wild card team left them gassed in the NL Championship Series. They were eliminated six wins shy of a repeat title.
For president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, the experience underscored an all-important truth.
“Our primary goal during the regular season is to win the division,” Friedman said. “That is what we feel like puts us in the best position to accomplish our ultimate goal.”
Thus, with another tight division race looming this year, the Dodgers didn’t wait to act aggressively this week.
Austin Barnes and Chris Taylor were struggling. Dalton Rushing and Hyeseong Kim looked like intriguing big-league options. And in two moves that were made in an effort to “win as many games as we can” in this season’s World Series title defense, Friedman said, the longtime veterans were released to make room for the rookies. Sentimentality lost out to the odds of even slightly better regular-season success.
“This has been a very emotional week for all of us,” Friedman said, addressing reporters hours after Taylor was released on Sunday. Barnes was designated for assignment earlier in the week. “Barnsey and CT have been in the middle of some huge moments for this organization. Both guys have left an indelible mark on our culture and where we’re at this point. So the decisions were incredibly difficult. The conversations were tough.”
“But,” Friedman countered, “with where we are, the division race, the composition of roster, everything — we felt like this was in the Dodgers’ best interest … [to] put us in a position to best win the World Series this year.”
Note the first factor Friedman mentioned in his answer.
Though the Dodgers are tied for the best record in the National League at 29-18, they continue to nurse the slimmest of NL West leads, entering Monday just one game up on the rival San Diego Padres (27-18) and upstart San Francisco Giants (28-19), and only four games clear of even the fourth-place Arizona Diamondbacks (25-22).
With their pitching staff already in tatters, at least temporarily, because of a wave of early-season injuries, the importance of consistent offense has also suddenly heightened; the Dodgers needing to maximize the production of their lineup to help offset a 4.18 team ERA that ranks 21st in the majors.
In a world where the Dodgers were running away with the division, or pitching the way they expected after two offseasons of spending heavily on the mound, maybe they could have tolerated Barnes’ and Taylor’s combined .208 batting average. They might have been more comfortable giving two longtime cornerstones of the franchise a longer leash to turn things around.
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Instead, as club brass surveyed this year’s competitive division landscape, they recognized that — this season more than most — every single victory could matter come the end of the campaign. That every single loss would make the challenge of winning another World Series incrementally tougher.
So, as Rushing crushed triple-A pitching and Kim excelled in what was initially planned to be only a brief big-league call-up, the Dodgers did what they felt like they must. Rushing replaced Barnes as backup catcher. Taylor was cut loose so Kim wouldn’t be sent back to the minors. And a roster that once seemed too top-heavy now has, at least in theory, more potential impact options to bring off the bench.
“We didn’t feel like coming into the season this was something that we would necessarily be doing in May,” Friedman said. “But with where we were, all things factored in, while not easy, we felt like it was the right thing to do.”
There were other reasons, of course, the Dodgers felt motivated to make such emotionally conflicting decisions now.
Manager Dave Roberts noted that Rushing (who was batting .308 in the minors this year, and has started his big-league career an impressive four-for-10) and Kim (who has hit .452 since arriving in the majors, and has impacted games with his versatile glove and lightning-quick speed) deserved opportunities for more prominent roles.
With most of the team’s core players on the wrong side of 30, there are longer-term considerations about developing younger talent as well.
“I think some of it is the [division] race,” Roberts said. “Some of it is, you still want to continue to develop young players and give them opportunities with a veteran ball club.”
Eventually, it was always likely that Rushing would force his way to the majors, and that Kim would carve out a niche with his well-rounded skill set.
But the early pressure being applied by the team’s NL West rivals still sped up that timeline. The Dodgers remember what happened in 2021. And, wary of having that reality repeat itself, they didn’t wait to begin acting with urgency this year.
“We saw it in 2021, winning 106 games and not winning the division,” Friedman said. “We have a tough division [again this year]. We’ve got some really good teams in our division who are playing well. And so for us, it’s about doing everything we can each night to try to win a game.”
Manager Dave Roberts was asked the other night about the “difficult decision” the Dodgers will have to make on Kim when utilityman Tommy Edman and outfielder Teoscar Hernández return from the injured list in the next couple of weeks, but nothing about this decision should be difficult.
Kim will still belong in the major leagues.
There won’t be enough at-bats for him?
The Dodgers have to find them.
He can gain more experience in the minors?
A 26-year-old who played seven-plus seasons in the Korean Baseball Organization before he signed with the Dodgers, Kim isn’t a typical rookie.
President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said part of the reason catcher Dalton Rushing was called up this week was because of the competition in the National League West?
The same logic should be applied to Kim’s situation.
Make liberal use of the injured list. Release Chris Taylor. Do whatever is necessary for Kim to remain in Los Angeles.
“How he’s playing,” Roberts acknowledged, “certainly helps his case.”
Shohei Ohtani homered twice in a 19-2 victory over the Athletics at Dodger Stadium on Thursday night. Both times, Kim was on base.
Ohtani, who leads off for the Dodgers, drove in only 10 runs in his first 30 games of the season. The bottom of the order wasn’t hitting or drawing walks
In the first 12 games Ohtani played since Kim was called up from triple-A Oklahoma City, Ohtani collected 18 runs batted in.
Kim batted eighth or ninth in each of the eight games he started through Thursday, and he’d already been driven home by Ohtani five times. The only player Ohtani has driven in more this season: Ohtani.
“A lot easier to pitch to Shohei when nobody’s on base,” Roberts said. “Recently, certainly with Kim and his ability to get on base, there’s always traffic.”
Kim entered the Freeway Series opener on Friday batting .429, a pleasant surprise considering he looked completely overmatched at the plate in spring training. His ability to make contact has enhanced his greatest weapon, his legs.
“He’s really talented,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “He can do a lot of really special things that you can’t see from a lot of players.”
That game-changing speed was on display in just his second major league game when he was deployed as a ninth-inning pinch runner with a one-run deficit against the Atlanta Braves at Truist Park. Kim stole second base and reached third on a dropped third strike, positioning him within 90 feet of the tying run. The next two batters struck out and the Dodgers lost the game, but the cameo performance was a preview of what was to come.
In his first 12 major league games, Kim stole three bases and plated nine runs. Three of his first 12 hits were infield hits.
“I tried to figure out what my role is in this organization, and I’m just trying to control what I can control,” Kim said through an interpreter.
Dodgers coaches also believe Kim’s speed has influenced how opponents attack Ohtani. One particular example that was cited was Ohtani’s three-run, ninth-inning home run in a 14-11 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on May 9.
Kim was on second base and Michael Conforto was on first when Ohtani came to the plate with one out and the score level, 11-11. Walking Ohtani would have moved the go-ahead run to third base, and with Kim’s speed, any ball put in play by the next batter would have likely resulted in a run. Diamondbacks reliever Ryan Thompson pitched to Ohtani, who launched a 1-2 pitch into the stands in right-center.
“With the speed dynamic [of Kim], it creates stress,” Roberts said. “He can steal a base, go first to third. It certainly opens some things up for the top of the order.”
The Dodgers have scored an average of 7.3 runs per game since Kim joined the team. In the process, he’s become a beloved figure in the clubhouse, overcoming a language barrier to form bonds with a wide range of players that includes everyone from Ohtani to Mookie Betts.
“That started in spring training,” Muncy said. “He was there with a couple of us and just immediately fit right in. He likes to have fun. He’s always smiling, he’s always laughing. He’s really fun to have out there.”
With a three-year deal that could be extended by the Dodgers for an additional two seasons, Kim figures to be a part of their future. But he’s already a reason for why they’re clicking now, and the returns of Edman and Hernández shouldn’t change that.
