Steve Webb
SAN FRANCISCO — It looked bad in real time, even worse in slow motion. AJ Pollock got caught between second and third in the first inning Saturday night, a barreled forward, trying to beat the throw to the bag. He seemed like he got caught in between two thoughts and he ended up sliding awkwardly, his leg buckling underneath. Anybody who saw the play knew that it wasn’t just something you would be able to shake off between innings in the dugout.
Roberts tells what we all knew
“I don’t want to speculate. I know it wasn’t good,” manager Dave Roberts said in a postgame interview. “Obviously it’s a huge loss in any capacity. … We just gotta see where we’re at tomorrow, but I think at the minimum it’s going to be a couple of weeks.”
“He’s a guy you can plug in there every day,” Roberts continued. “He hits right, he hits left, he drives runs in and gets on base. He’s just added so much to our ball club. To fill those shoes is going to be tough.”
This marks the second time that Pollock’s 2021 has been interrupted by injuries, as he sustained another hamstring strain fielding a ball in May and missed eighteen games because of it. And this injury looks worse than the previous one, so I can hardly see AJ coming back anytime before the last week of the season, and he might not even be available until October.
Pollock’s been great in 2021
This is particularly harsh news because it interrupts Pollock’s best season with the Dodgers by far. He is hitting .296 this season, with 18 home runs and a .876 OPS. There was a stretch in July where he put the team on his back and carried them for a good number of games. He was National Leaguer Player of the the week for July 5-11, hitting .391 during that stretch with three doubles, three home runs an four RBI. For the month of July, he hit a remarkable .371, raising his 2021 batting average forty points along the way.
Pollo continued to hit well through the first two weeks of August, hitting his high-water mark for batting average of .314 on August 11. And though his hitting tailed off a little bit toward the end of August, who could forget his heroics during the series in San Diego at the end of the month? He robbed a home run on one night, and then hit the game winner in the sixteenth inning on the next. Clearly, AJ is a presence on both sides of the ball and his absence from the line-up will be sorely missed.
The way forward
So what do the Dodgers do to replace him? Of course the obvious answer is play Cody Bellinger every day and hope that he starts to hit. Chris Taylor will probably have to play left every day, and Mookie Betts will be in right, but the Dodgers will probably struggle with the third outfield spot on days that a lefty is pitching. The possible bench players other than Bellinger are Billy McKinney and Zach McKinstry, but both those guys are lefties as well. Now’s a time that a DJ Peters would come in handy to provide a right-handed bat in the outfield, but I’m afraid that ship has sailed. Probably, Luke Raley or Zach Reks will get the call up for Pollo’s roster spot, but there’s no denying that without AJ Pollock, the Dodgers are simply not the same team.
Get well soon, AJ!
