Steve Webb
SAN DIEGO, CA — Blake, we hardly knew ye! After just two appearances, Dodgers star reliever Blake Treinen is headed back to the IL. He had been dealing with some soreness since his last outing on September 5 against the Giants. Then, after playing catch before Saturday’s game, the Dodger training staff saw something that made them decide to shut Treinen down completely had put him on the Injured List, retroactive to Sept. 7.
While the injured was termed “shoulder tightness”, this particular tightness is in an area, the lat, that’s different from where Treinen partially tore his capsule — which he said likely would have required surgery had it not scarred over faster than expected — and, Roberts said, is “more on the normal side” for someone coming off this type of injury.
The problem, however, is that the mounting missed time is “preventing [Treinen] from doing what he needs to do,” Roberts said.
In his stead, Andre Jackson has been recalled from Oklahoma City. Jackson pitched a few times last season for the Dodgers but is yet to see big league action so far in 2022.
As for Treinen, it’s going to be hard to gauge the road forward from here. If he hadn’t hit this setback, he was on schedule to continue to work higher and higher leverage situations until the postseason. Now, the earliest he could return would be September 22 (there is a 15-day minimum for pitchers this year). That doesn’t give a whole lot of time to get up to speed. After that date, there are only 12 more games in the regular season, plus a little bit of a layoff before the divisional round begins on Oct. 11. That’s still a month away, but it’s cutting it mighty close. And while Treinen’s looked good so far, can we really trust his stuff to be there when the game is on the line in October.
In more positive news, Brusdar Graterol and Yency Almonte are nearing their return. Once those guys get back, it will be critical to get them both ready for high leverage as quickly as possible.
It’s a race against the clock at this point, one that the Dodgers can ill-afford to lose. To quote Dave Roberts from earlier on Saturday, “It’s not great, to be quite honest.”
