LOS ANGELES — For the Los Angeles Dodgers, panic amid a miserable stretch of baseball found a visual when Freddie Freeman walked toward the home dugout in clear discomfort rather than toward first base after getting hit by a pitch.
Freeman, who took an 88 mph Jose Quintana sinker to his left hand and wrist area in the sixth inning of Sunday’s Dodgers loss, moved slowly and gritted his teeth when manager Dave Roberts approached and kept slowly walking down the tunnel to the clubhouse with assistant athletic director Yosuke “Possum” Nakajima walking alongside him.
The Dodgers quickly announced that Freeman had exited the game with a left wrist contusion. Roberts said X-rays were negative on Freeman’s wrist, and the nine-time All-Star first baseman is in the “day to day category.” If Freeman can’t play Monday against the Twins, rookie Dalton Rushing is expected to slot in at first base.
“That one I held my breath,” Roberts said. “I think we all did. When you’re scuffling, and to potentially lose a guy for four to six weeks is obviously very scary. But exhale, sigh of relief after hearing that it was negative. To lose him longer would’ve been really tough to overcome.”
Consider it good fortune, given Freeman’s history: the first baseman suffered a fractured left wrist in 2017 when lefty Aaron Loup hit him with a 94 mph fastball, and he was out for seven weeks.
Freeman was no longer at the ballpark when the media were allowed inside the Dodgers’ clubhouse.
The image of Freeman in clear discomfort was a virtual disaster scenario for a Dodgers team that is already in the midst of a brutal stretch, falling 6-5 on Sunday to drop their 10th game in their last 12 and decrease their division lead to three and a half games. Freeman was at the All-Star festivities once again last week, just months removed from right ankle surgery, and has produced an .836 OPS through 87 games, though that has tapered off some with a cold spell that started in early June.
Still, he’s been an indispensable part of a Dodgers lineup that has been among the game’s worst since the calendar flipped to July, entering Sunday ranked 26th in runs scored (48) and 29th in OPS (.615) for the month.
The Dodgers spent much of Sunday looking like a club very much in its own way, even before Freeman exited. The club’s slide this month has looked miserable because they haven’t hit. Even when they have hit, they haven’t pitched well enough.
More than anything, they simply have not played good baseball.
Having finally mustered a three-run lead, the Dodgers undid themselves this time in the fourth inning, when Clayton Kershaw issued a leadoff walk but appeared to have gotten the ground ball he needed to get out of the inning. But Tommy Edman’s throw from third base was a wide one, kicking past Freeman and allowing a run to score.
Another came home when Andruw Monasterio lined a single to left — and Monasterio advanced to second base when Esteury Ruiz airmailed the cutoff man for the second time in three games this series. The gaffes compiled again a batter later, when Joey Ortiz laced a ball to center field that Andy Pages appeared to have a bead on until it clanked off his glove to bring home the tying run.
This came a day after Pages misplayed a ball in center and Teoscar Hernández couldn’t cut off a ball in right field that led to an additional 90 feet.
The flubs erased one of the few leads the Dodgers have had in this stretch, and continued into Kershaw’s final inning, when Ruiz went to go pick up a ball in left field and dropped it, allowing William Contreras to snake an extra 90 feet and end Kershaw’s day. When he returned to the dugout, Kershaw took out his frustration, chucking his glove and hat against the bench.
“I was just frustrated with myself,” Kershaw said. “We scored three runs, I gave up a walk. It’s just frustrating.”
He continued to voice his frustration before cutting the postgame scrum short.
“We need to win a game,” Kershaw said. “No excuses, just play better… I don’t have much to say. I’m going to get myself in trouble, so let’s just call it.”
The Dodgers constructed this roster knowing their defense might be something of a hurdle. The current iteration of this group has hardly helped that issue. Edman has big league experience at third base, but is only playing there because Max Muncy is hurt. Ruiz is also only up in the majors because of Muncy’s injury, playing left field against a left-handed pitcher because Edman is at third (and unable to play center field, which would kick Pages to left).
While Hernández has insisted he feels fine, Roberts conceded shortly before the All-Star break that the veteran is not moving around at 100 percent health.
It’s hard to look at the state of the Dodgers right now as being all that watchable when their offense isn’t producing, which it hasn’t. It’s concerning that their pitching issues have lingered. But as concerning as anything after an ugly weekend against the Brewers is this: when the margins are slimmer for this Dodgers team, they’re failing to execute on the margins the way they did last October.
“I think the defense, the plays that I’ve seen, (our) lack of focus,” Roberts said. “That’s what I feel…Recently we’re seeing that more and more. That shouldn’t happen with our club.”
(Photo: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
