LOS ANGELES — Health appears primed in the reserves for the Los Angeles Dodgers , who despite committing more than a billion dollars in baseball’s splashiest offseason are in dire need of reinforcements. Tyler Glasnow , the club’s All-Star right-hander, will make his expected return from his short stint on the injured list on Wednesday against the San Francisco Giants . Advertisement The kicker, manager Dave Roberts said Saturday afternoon: Clayton Kershaw will return to the Dodgers’ rotation on Thursday, marking the three-time Cy Young winner’s official return from offseason shoulder surgery and starting the future Hall of Fame left-hander’s 17th season with the club.
Glasnow’s hiatus on the injured list came at an optimal time for his overall usage — he has thrown 109 innings already this season just 11 shy of his career-high – and amid a cluster of Dodgers pitching injuries that suddenly has made starting pitching a priority at this month’s deadline. No team in baseball has more pitchers on the injured list (11), though that number will decrease by two this coming week. Free, daily sports updates direct to your inbox.
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forEach((el) => { el.setAttribute("style", "pointer-events: none;");}); The right-hander is not expected to return with any strict innings limitations. But how the Dodgers chart a course Glasnow has never reached remains to be seen.
To date, he has been the Dodgers’ most reliable arm, logging a 3.47 ERA in his 18 starts. “For me, I believe in the player having skin in the game,” Roberts said.
“If you’re going to have the conversation and if the player is on board, then we’re in it together regardless of the circumstance. Tyler’s time in the big leagues, he deserves to be part of that conversation whatever way we go.” Kershaw’s return comes just in time and in a familiar role.
His signing this spring was billed as the cherry on top of a picture-perfect offseason, a luxury of having an established presence available to reinforce the club’s rotation midseason. Now, he’s coming into the mix hoping to carry the load for a group that hasn’t had a starting pitcher collect a win in close to a month. The 36-year-old left-hander is coming off the first major arm surgery of his career, undergoing surgery to repair the capsule and glenohumeral ligaments in his left shoulder.
While he has topped out at 91.7 mph in his rehab starts — a solid couple ticks above where he was when pitching with the compromised shoulder last October — that velocity dropped once he reached the fourth inning of his rehab start on Friday night with the club’s Triple-A affiliate. Advertisement Right now, however, the Dodgers need him to join a rotation that includes four rookies and could pop in a fifth on Monday, when prospect River Ryan could make his major league debut.
“Looking at what we’ve been through in the last couple months, certainly it’s really a necessity versus a luxury that I think when we put together the roster, that’s what our thought was,” Roberts said of Kershaw’s return. “Now it’s certainly a necessity.” Required reading (Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images).
