The Dodgers starting rotation was the most stable part of their team through the first quarter of the season, but the last week and a half has put a dent in the depth and figures to create some tests over at least the next few weeks. Blake Snell was placed on the injured list on Friday with loose bodies in his left elbow, which means he’ll be on the shelf for quite a while.
“We feel confident he’ll be back with us this year,” manager Dave Roberts told reporters before Friday’s game in Anaheim, from
which Snell was scratched from his scheduled start.
That’s not what you want to hear about any player or pitcher, but it’s where the Dodgers are at. Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz had arthroscopic surgery on April 22 to remove loose bodies from his elbow and is expected to miss three months. Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal had surgery to remove loose bodies as well on May 6, and his return timetable is measured in months, not weeks.
The outcome for Snell is still to be determined, but surgery is the most likely per Maddie Lee of the Los Angeles Times. That decision will come in the next week, per Jack Harris of the California Post, who noted such a procedure would sideline Snell until July or August.
Tyler Glasnow is also on the injured list with back spasms. He’s technically eligible to return next Friday, but Roberts said earlier this week that Glasnow won’t be ready by then, and is only just now throwing off flat ground.
So for now, the Dodgers rotation is Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Emmet Sheehan, Justin Wrobleski, and Roki Sasaki. Yamamoto and Sasaki always get at least five days of rest between starts and Ohtani usually gets at least six, with just one start this year on five days rest. That figures to continue, per Fabian Ardaya at The Athletic:
“I think we’re prepared to do whatever we can,” Roberts said. “But I will say the most important thing is to keep the guys on their schedules, not try to push too much because of circumstances with the rotation, because then you start to compromise their health.”
To date, no Dodgers pitcher this season has started on four days rest, and only 12 of 45 starts have been with five days rest.
After Ohtani’s seven shutout innings on Wednesday against the San Francisco Giants, Roberts said part of the reason he kept Ohtani in was due to getting extra rest before his next time out, which suggested some sort of shuffling before the series against the San Diego Padres. It’s unclear whether Snell’s injury changed those plans.
Perhaps a bullpen game was inevitable either in this series or the next, but with Snell scratched on Friday the Dodgers pivoted to using eight pitchers for a combined shutout of the Angels. There are five games left during this current stretch of 13 game days in a row. If the Dodgers stay in order, they can start Wrobleski, Sasaki, Yamamoto, Ohtani, and Sheehan over the next five games, with all of them going on five days rest.
If the Dodgers stay in that order in the rotation, they won’t need a sixth starter (or someone pitching on four days rest) until May 27, at home against the Colorado Rockies. If Glasnow isn’t an option by then, River Ryan will at least still be on the radar. Ryan returned for Triple-A Oklahoma City with four innings and four strikeouts on Friday in Albuquerque, after missing over a month with a hamstring strain, and has time to start at least once more in Triple-A to build up before a potential call-up, though the Dodgers don’t plan to rush him back.
“You’ve just got to be sure that he gets out of this one okay and it’s got to be a uniform decision that we all feel good about,” Roberts told reporters in Anaheim earlier on Friday. “Him pitching for us is a possibility, but it’s a slim possibility. The most important thing is his progression. If everyone isn’t on board with that and speeding it up, it’s moot, it’s just not going to happen. But if the training staff feels that it’s okay and you’re not compromising him and the progression, then it’s a conversation.”
Or more bullpen games could be in the future Left-hander Charlie Barnes was called up from Oklahoma City on Friday with Snell going on the injured list, and pitched the ninth inning on Friday’s shutout. Barnes is a starter by trade and four of his seven appearances for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs this season were starts, all of them lasting five innings, the last on May 6. The Dodgers claimed Barnes off waivers on May 9, and he was originally slated to start for Oklahoma City on Saturday before the call up.
