Dodger Details: Another injury for Tyler Glasnow, Andy Pages’ surge and more

Sports

add

LOS ANGELES — A year after what the Los Angeles Dodgers considered to be an anomalous concentration of pitching injuries, here they go again. It’s April 27, and the names are already starting to pile onto the heap they had from a year ago.

Blake Snell lasted two starts before landing on the injured list with shoulder inflammation. And when he tried ramping up for a second bullpen this week, Snell felt something in the shoulder again, prompting more imaging, which came back clean. His timeline for a return is still uncertain, months after the two-time Cy Young winner inked a $182 million deal.

Blake Treinen felt something in his forearm, and then again while trying to warm up last week in Texas. The Dodgers again avoided the worst but don’t know when their top relief ace from last October will be back.

Then came Sunday. Tyler Glasnow left the mound early for the second consecutive start, this time with a more concerning diagnosis. His shoulder ached, as it has off and on this season as he’s tried to rework his mechanics to avoid injury. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and head athletic trainer Thomas Albert hustled to the mound as soon as Glasnow completed his warmup throws in the second inning of Sunday’s 9-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“Something grabbed,” Glasnow said. “Just making a lot of changes, trying to figure out a way to stay healthy, I think some of the changes led to other things kind of taking over. And I’m just at this point. I’m just trying to figure out what to do. It’s just extremely frustrating.”

Could the Dodgers stretch out Ben Casparius to start, given how well he’s thrown?

“It’s a thought,” Dave Roberts said. “He gave us four innings today. He’s unflappable. He flooded the strike zone. And he saved our tails today.”

— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) April 28, 2025

A stint on the IL is “certainly a possibility,” Roberts said. He’s uncertain if Glasnow will go for more imaging.

“He’s had a lot of imaging,” Roberts said. “But if there’s more imaging, I’m not sure.”

The Dodgers already have 12 pitchers on the injured list, several with preexisting ailments from a year ago.

“It’s not something we haven’t experienced before,” Roberts said. “So, yeah, we’re going to be fine. I think we’re all just frustrated, but we still won a series.”

The Dodgers have stockpiled depth to ensure this isn’t an issue in April, or even June or July, when much of that depth suddenly becomes available and Clayton Kershaw, Emmet Sheehan and, eventually, Shohei Ohtani gear up to return to big-league mounds. The Dodgers aren’t yet in the position they were last October, when they ran out three healthy starters and still won the World Series.

The frustration is clear, particularly for an emotional and exasperated Glasnow who, despite setting career-highs in innings and stars last year, has struggled to stay healthy in the second year of the five-year, $136.5 million extension he signed upon his trade to the Dodgers.

“Yeah, I’m just obsessed with trying to figure out what’s going on,” Glasnow said. “And it’s been like this for a few years, and I’m trying to find a way to stay healthy, and I’ll try to do whatever. I just don’t really have an answer right now, and I think that’s the most frustrating thing. It’s not like a lack of trying. It’s just kind of just getting exhausting at this point. I know it’s probably exhausting for a lot of people, for me especially, but I feel bad for my teammates. I feel bad for people watching. It’s just a whole very frustrating situation for me. It’s hard.”

Tony Gonsolin is expected to return from the injured list during the upcoming series against the Miami Marlins, the team he got bombarded by 19 months ago in his final start before Tommy John surgery. Before that, the Dodgers will run their second bullpen game in less than a week. And now, they could need another starter for Glasnow’s next turn through the rotation as the right-hander hits the shelf for the foreseeable future.

Perhaps that start could come from Ben Casparius, who on extremely short notice Sunday delivered 3 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing just two base runners and striking out five. He touched 98.8 mph as he entered his fourth inning of work, continuing a noticeable increase in stuff even from his impressive showing in the big leagues last October. The former starter has already shown himself as a long man, throwing at least 40 pitches in four of his last five appearances.

“It’s a thought,” Roberts said of stretching Casparius out to start again. “He gave us four innings today. He’s unflappable. He flooded the strike zone. And he saved our tails today.”

Casparius sports a 2.91 ERA over 21 2/3 innings this season, carrying the brunt of the load for a bullpen that had thrown the most innings in the majors even before Glasnow lasted just one inning on Sunday.

Perhaps the Dodgers’ offense has clicked into something here. A day after rallying twice and breaking out for a four-run eighth inning to win on Saturday, the Dodgers put together a vintage performance on Sunday. They quickly erased a two-run deficit against Bailey Falter, putting up four runs in the first inning, another in the second and getting him out of the game by the fifth before piling on against a shoddy Pirates bullpen.

Their largest catalyst? Andy Pages, whose rollercoaster April has hit a new high. The second-year outfielder set career-bests with four hits and four RBIs on Sunday, including launching a home run to center field immediately after the Pirates made a pitching change to have him face right-hander Kyle Nicolas.

Since Roberts sat Pages on the first day in Washington against the Nationals this month to reset, Pages is 19 for 49 (.388), with five home runs and eight extra-base hits. He’s up to an .861 OPS. His defense has improved, as well. He’s still been prone to mistakes, but ones that are much easier to stomach when he’s hitting this way.

He’s relaxed. Pages’ struggles, he said, centered on the pressure he felt to earn the starting job. He leaned on Teoscar Hernández for counsel. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and Roberts tried to ease his nerves.

“What I think, in my opinion, works best for Andy, (is not being) too concerned about where his hands are at, where his stride is at, you know, all that stuff,” Roberts said. “I think that’s the paralysis by analysis type. … So that’s kind of our hitting coaches, Teo, just kind of freeing him up mentally. I think that’s been a big kind of contributor.”

Pages said he’s thinking freer now. He’s also tapped back into what he feels makes him an effective hitter. He tried getting too passive while hitting at the bottom of the order, seeing pitches rather than attacking them.

“At first, I was more passive, trying to see as many pitches as possible,” Pages said in Spanish. “That’s never helped me. In my career, that’s never helped me because I get too passive. The pitches in the zone, I need to hit.”

Odds and ends

• Kershaw is not eligible to return until May 18, but seems to be lining up for that timeline. He’s expected to throw five innings and 75 pitches on Tuesday with Triple-A Oklahoma City, then come back and start on regular rest on Sunday as he continues to build up after offseason knee and toe surgeries.
• Hernández’s fifth-inning home run off of Falter was the 200th of his career, a milestone the Dodgers commemorated by authenticating his bat and finding the baseball he launched into the seats in center field. “For me, it’s pretty special,” Hernández said. “It’s hard to hit homers in the big leagues.” As his bat was being authenticated, Pages homered. Hernández sprinted to shower his teammate with sunflower seeds to celebrate.

(Top photo of Tyler Glasnow: Luke Hales / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

Deion Sanders stands firm on political beliefs after Shedeur’s draft slide

Agency_LATINWEB

Next

trending_flat

LeBron James explains why he thinks crucial late call involving Anthony Edwards shouldn’t have been overturned

Sports