The Dodgers avoided one injury scare with Shohei Ohtani on Tuesday night.
But they suffered another in the deflating loss of Kiké Hernández to an oblique strain.
In a blowout win over the Colorado Rockies, Hernández was removed in the fifth inning after feeling pain in his oblique during his first two at-bats of the night (the first a home run, the next a double).
Hernández said he had originally tweaked his side in pregame batting practice on Monday –– when he returned from a two-month absence to begin the year while recovering from offseason elbow surgery.
He will now go on the injured list, and Alex Freeland will be called up from triple-A, according to manager Dave Roberts.
The good news for the Dodgers was that Ohtani got out of Tuesday with a much better fate. After getting hit in the right hand by an 85 mph changeup, he also exited the game early. However, Roberts said that was only a precautionary move, as the ball hit the two-way star on a padded piece of protection equipment rather than directly on his pitching hand.
Ohtani is still expected to make his scheduled pitching start Wednesday, Roberts added, though he wasn’t yet certain if Ohtani would also hit in the game.
Hernández, on the other hand, will now have to wait and learn the severity of his injury.
The utility man had just returned on Monday from an offseason surgery to repair an elbow injury that had plagued him through much of last season. On Tuesday, he had also just hit his first home run of the campaign in the third inning, before appearing to get hurt on a double he launched to deep center field in the fourth.
Hernández looked in discomfort as he pulled into second base on the play. He was removed from the game a half-inning later. As he sat on the bench, the SNLA broadcast showed him having an emotional conversation with Roberts in the dugout.
He said his timeline to return was not immediately clear.
With Hernández out, Freeland will rejoin the Dodgers a couple weeks removed from being sent down.
While he was hitting just .235 at the time of his demotion, he had gotten hot in triple-A by going 13-for-49 with four home runs.
Hernández’s injury also came just a day after the Dodgers had designated for assignment fellow veteran utility bat Santiago Espinal.
