Dodgers’ Glasnow ‘unlikely’ to return this year
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Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
ATLANTA — Tyler Glasnow has a sprained right elbow and is “highly unlikely” to pitch again this season, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced Saturday, a devastating blow for a high-priced team with World Series expectations but serious concerns about its postseason rotation.
Glasnow, 31, had been out since Aug. 11 with what the team described as elbow tendinitis. He seemed to be close to a return before suffering another setback that essentially ended his season. The right-hander was warming up for a two- to three-inning simulated game from Truist Park early Friday afternoon, expected to be his last step before rejoining the Dodgers’ rotation, but had to shut it down because of elbow discomfort as he approached his 25th throw from the bullpen.
The Dodgers at this point can only be confident in newcomer Jack Flaherty starting their first postseason game. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who missed nearly three months with a shoulder injury but had an encouraging return last week, seems like a solid bet to follow him. Beyond that, though, the Dodgers’ rotation outlook is exceedingly uncertain.
“It’s a big blow,” Roberts said of Glasnow’s injury. “Looking at what he meant for our ballclub, what he’s done for us, what we expected him to do — certainly there’s going to be a cost. But we gotta move on and we will. We have a lot of capable people. I feel bad for Tyler because he did everything to stay healthy and get back, and it just wasn’t going to happen.”
The Dodgers acquired Glasnow from the Tampa Bay Rays over the offseason, giving up two promising young players in starter Ryan Pepiot and outfielder Jonny DeLuca and subsequently signing Glasnow to a five-year, $136.6 million extension.
Glasnow then posted a 3.49 ERA in his first 134 innings, striking out 168 batters and issuing 35 walks — oftentimes looking like a bona fide ace. But his arm held up for little more than four months.
Roberts said Glasnow will be shut down from throwing for an undetermined amount of time. The concern is that he might have suffered further damage to his ulnar collateral ligament, which he repaired via Tommy John surgery in August of 2021. Roberts said Glasnow’s UCL is intact, though the diagnosis of a sprained elbow typically means the ligament has sustained at least some damage.
It’s only the latest injury development for a team that is working through too many of them.
Clayton Kershaw, fighting through a bone spur in his left big toe, has been throwing off a makeshift mound but there still isn’t a definitive timetable for his return. Gavin Stone, meanwhile, is dealing with shoulder inflammation and has yet to restart his throwing program. The other two main options for the rotation, Walker Buehler and Bobby Miller, have struggled.
Roberts nonetheless attempted to strike a positive tone.
“It’s manageable,” he said of the pitching injuries. “We’re doing it. I think the main thing is that we have to just continue to stay focused on the players that are available to us and winning a baseball game that night. To the guys’ credit, that’s what they’ve done, and we’ve put ourselves in a good spot given all that we’ve gone through this year. We’ve still got a pretty good ballclub.”
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit two homers in an 11-5 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, emphatically ending the three-time MVP’s longest homer drought since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with his 24th homer, hammering Landen Roupp‘s fourth pitch 419 feet deep into the right-field bleachers with an exit velocity of 110.3 mph.
The slugger had been in a 10-game homer drought since June 2, going 10-for-40 in that stretch with no RBIs, although he still had an eight-game hitting streak during his power outage.
Ohtani led off the sixth with his 25th homer, sending Tristan Beck‘s breaking ball outside the strike zone into the bleachers in right. He also moved one homer behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the overall major league lead.
Dodgers fans brought him home with a standing ovation as Ohtani produced his third multihomer game of the season and the 22nd of his career.
Ohtani reached base four times and scored three runs in his first four at-bats, drawing two walks to go with his two homers.
Ohtani hadn’t played in 10 straight games without hitting a homer since 2023 in the final 10 games of his six-year tenure with the Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani had slowed down a bit over the past two weeks after he was named the NL Player of the Month for May with a formidable performance, racking up 15 homers and 28 RBIs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BOSTON — Hunter Dobbins had quite the week.
First, he said last weekend that he would rather retire than pitch for the Yankees because his father was drafted by New York twice before being traded.
Then, he went out and beat the Yankees.
A few days after his comments about never wanting to pitch for New York, he had to defend his dad’s story about being drafted by the Yankees in response to a New York Post article that cited multiple official databases and the Yankees’ own records that couldn’t confirm Lance Dobbins ever played with the organization.
On Saturday night, Dobbins (4-1) followed up by going six shutout innings in Boston’s 4-3 victory over New York, his second win over the Yankees in less than a week.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m more worried about just the win column, whether it’s against them or anybody. My job is to try and help this team win as many ballgames as we can, and pitch in meaningful playoff baseball games. That’s what I’m more focused on.”
But he realizes what it means to the fan base in this longtime rivalry, with the Red Sox fans heard chanting about the Yankees outside the park before he spoke in an interview room.
“Yeah, I love being able to perform and get those wins for the fans here,” he said. “They deserve it. It’s a great city, passionate fan base, so being able to get those wins — especially twice in one week — means a lot and looking forward to trying to build on that going forward.”
In his victory over New York last Sunday, Dobbins held the Yankees to three runs over five innings, two on a first-inning homer by Aaron Judge.
On Saturday night, Judge went 0-for-3 against him, striking out twice on curveballs.
“It was just kind of scouting,” Dobbins said of his game plan against New York’s slugger after Garrett Crochet struck him out three times in the series opener Friday.
“Crochet has an electric fastball. I can throw it hard, but the shape isn’t quite as elite,” he said. “So we knew we had better weapons to go at him with, so I felt like we did a good job of kind of keeping a balanced attack throughout the order.”
Dobbins struck out five and gave up only two singles Saturday.
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