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The Los Angeles Dodgers will be without ace lefty Blake Snell for the foreseeable future. Snell, who has been out since April 6 with shoulder inflammation, “didn’t feel greet” after playing catch Tuesday and will be re-examined when the team returns home from their road trip, manager Dave Roberts said Wednesday (per Los Angeles Times).
“Part of the messaging from us to Blake is, it’s about later on in the season,” Roberts said (per the Times). “And if there’s any type of discomfort, let’s not try to fight through it.”
Snell, 32, has made two starts for the Dodgers this season and allowed seven runs (two earned) in nine innings. He walked eight and struck out four. Snell’s fastball velocity was down about 1 mph from last April in those two starts. An initial MRI came back clean and the Dodgers expected Snell to miss only a few weeks. Now his return will be delayed even further.
Pitching injuries come with the territory for the Dodgers, who currently have 12 pitchers on the major league injured list. The team’s rotation depth chart looks like this at the moment:
The Dodgers, with a payroll pushing $400 million, have already used eight different starting pitchers this season, one behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the most in baseball. Righty Ben Casparius will be No. 9 when he starts a bullpen game in Wednesday night’s series finale against the Cubs at Wrigley Field (LAD +110, CHC -130, over/under 9, per DraftKings).
In the three wild-card era, the Dodgers have almost treated the regular season as dress rehearsal. Their priority is putting the team in the best position heading into the postseason, not necessarily winning as many games as possible from April through September. They’re OK with Snell missing time now as long he’s available in October.
Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner, joined the Dodgers on a five-year contract worth $182 million this past offseason. He was limited to 20 starts with the NL West rival San Francisco Giants by a pair of groin injuries last season. In those 20 starts, Snell pitched to a 3.12 ERA with 145 strikeouts in 104 innings.
The Dodgers are 16-8 and will wrap up a two-game series with the Cubs in Chicago on Wednesday. They have an off-day Thursday and will open a three-game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
