Kershaw Lands on IL, Will Miss ASG Appearance – Dodgers south-paw Clayton Kershaw, battling swelling and inflammation in his pitching shoulder for the past six days, was placed on the 15-day injured list Monday, the day he was initially scheduled to make his 17th start of the season.
Michael Grove was called up from Triple-A to take Kershaw’s place in the rotation, and Gavin Stone was added to the roster, replacing lefty reliever Victor Gonzalez, to eat up innings out of the bullpen.
Kershaw, who recently received a cortisone injection, is eligible to be activated as early as July 15, the Dodgers’ second game coming off the All-Star break. The team is optimistic he will be back right around then.
“Right now, every day, there’s been improvement, which is great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said prior to Monday’s 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates. “The thought is to keep his arm moving so it’s not going to be some downtime as far as not throwing the baseball.”
Kershaw, 35 years-of-age, had served as the ace of the Dodgers’ troubled pitching staff for the first half of this season, going 10-4 with a 2.55 ERA while striking out 105 batters in 95⅓ innings of work and taking every turn through the rotation. His production earned him his 10th selection to the All-Star Game. Now the National League will have to fill his spot on the roster.
Kershaw expressed sadness and disappointment that his 7-year-old son, Charley, will not watch him pitch in Seattle.
“We’re still going to go and have a good time and everything,” said Kershaw, who played catch in the outfield prior to Monday’s game. “But he’s getting into it now. For him to see that, that would’ve been cool.”
Kershaw established himself as arguably the best pitcher of his era, much like Sandy Koufax did for the Dodgers, by combining dominance with reliability, averaging 222 innings per season while posting a 2.24 ERA from 2010 to 2015. But the three-time Cy Young Award winner has not surpassed the 200-inning mark since. The ensuing eight years have included 11 trips to the IL.
The 2023 season was looking promising and like one in which Kershaw might hold up for a full season. The velocity on his fastball and the life on his slider had ticked back up to what they looked like in his glory days. Hip mobility exercises had taken some of the pressure off his troublesome back. But Kershaw pulled himself out of his start in Colorado on Tuesday with two outs in the sixth inning, immediately after surrendering his first hit on a warm night at high altitude.
Kershaw later said “the ball wasn’t coming out as good as I wanted” in the final inning and that he stayed in only to keep his no-hitter intact. In the days that followed, Kershaw did his best to stay off the IL and potentially make his next scheduled start. He ultimately ran out of time.
“Just the way the season was going, I had hoped that I could make it through a full season,” Kershaw said. “I haven’t done that in a while. It’s always something that I want to do. So any time that doesn’t work out, that’s definitely frustrating for me. But where we’re at in the season and with the break, it’s probably overall a good thing to take a little break now. Ideally, I wish I could’ve skipped a start and made the next one, but that’s not where we’re at with our pitching. Sometimes roster decisions take precedent, and I understand that.”
And…
Trout Exits with Injury – Los Angeles Angels All-Star outfielder Mike Trout exited Monday night’s 10-3 loss to the San Diego Padres in the eighth inning with an injury to his left wrist, something he was worried about after the game.
Trout fouled off an 0-1 pitch from Nick Martinez leading off the inning and immediately shook out his left arm. He briefly returned to the batter’s box before backing away in obvious discomfort and pain and signaling to the dugout that he needed assistance.
Angels’ manager Phil Nevin and a trainer came out to check on the slugger, and he was removed from the game. Mickey Moniak finished the at-bat, that resulted in a strikeout that was charged to Trout.
“I just took a swing and something felt uncomfortable,” Trout said. “Just waiting on getting some scans and hope for the best.
“It doesn’t feel great. I mean, there’s no two ways to it,” the three-time American League MVP added. “Hopefully, just a sprained wrist. I can’t describe the pain I felt. I never felt it before, ever, before this. I never had wrist problems or anything. Just freak things.”
The Angels, already decimated by injuries to some of their key players, infielders Anthony Rendon, Zach Neto, Brandon Drury and Gio Urshela, lost for the fifth time in their past six games.
“We’ve talked all along about our depth, and it’s been tested,” Nevin said. “We’ve been adding to that. We’ve lost some big pieces to this. We’ve talked about having the next guy up. Same thing in this case. It’ll give somebody the opportunity to get more looks and get more at-bats, depending on what the outcome of Mike’s tests are. So we’ll see how it goes.”
Trout had two knocks and a walk Monday night, including an RBI single in the sixth. He is batting .263 with 18 homers and 44 RBIs in 81 games.
Trout was named to his 11th All-Star team, and he is set to start in next week’s Midsummer Classic in Seattle after missing the previous two with injuries.
