2 weeks Ago
PHOENIX — As Corbin Carroll drove a hanging curveball high into the Phoenix night sky, a more ominous development was coming to fruition for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Clayton Kershaw, making just his seventh start in his return from the first major arm surgery of his career, was walking off with a trainer. Advertisement The Dodgers announced that Kershaw left the second inning of Friday’s start against the Arizona Diamondbacks with left big toe pain.
And once again, the Dodgers’ fragile starting rotation plans have been thrown into flux. Tyler Glasnow remains on the injured list with elbow tendonitis; while playing catch Friday represented a positive step, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said this week they were still “hopeful,” not certain that he would return this season. Yoshinobu Yamamoto has only just started a rehab assignment for his strained rotator cuff.
The options behind the half-billion dollar pitching duo have already thinned some, leaving the Dodgers to put plenty of the burden on trade deadline acquisition Jack Flaherty, rookie Gavin Stone and the surgically-repaired left shoulder of Kershaw. For a Dodgers club that has played some of its best baseball this last month and finally appeared near full strength, it only exacerbates their biggest question mark. A sign something was amiss: when Carroll’s ball landed in the visiting bullpen, Joe Kelly was already warming.
Another: the two pitches Kershaw threw in the inning to Carroll were an 87.2 mph fastball and a 67.4 mph curveball.
This was after a first inning in which Kershaw’s command looked off, allowing a pair of runs while walking a batter and hitting another. Required reading (Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images).
