LOS ANGELES — It’s the final week of the regular season and the Dodgers are sorting things out as they prepare for the postseason, which they hope will start on October 3 in the National League Division Series rather than September 29 in the wild card round.
Before Tuesday’s game, Blake Snell pitched a bullpen session at Dodger Stadium as he works his way back from leaving last Wednesday’s start with left groin discomfort. Manager Dave Roberts said Snell is in line to start on Saturday in San Francisco against the Giants, with Tarik Skubal — currently on the bereavement list — starting Friday night at Oracle Park.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto starts Wednesday and Tyler Glasnow Thursday against the Padres.
Also on Tuesday, reliever Will Klein pitched a simulated inning against Dalton Rushing in a battle of players on the injured list. Klein is on the 60-day injured list with elbow discomfort and not eligible to be activated until September 30 at the earliest, but it looks like he’ll be in the stay-hot camp should the Dodgers have room to add him at some point later in the postseason, similar to in 2025 when Klein wasn’t active until the World Series and he pitched five scoreless innings, including four innings in the marathon Game 3.
“With Will it’s more get healthy, show that you’re healthy, throw to some hitters,” Roberts said. “He’ll throw during the week off, then we’ll kind of see if there’s an opportunity later on in the postseason, sort of like last year.”
Rushing is trying to work his way back from elbow discomfort suffered when practicing throwing. His role would be a left-handed bat off the bench, a role currently occupied by Josue De Paula, who has been the designated hitter with Shohei Ohtani out. But Ohtani is expected to be activated Wednesday barring an unforeseen setback.
That essentially sets up a battle between Rushing and De Paula for a postseason roster spot, though Roberts said the plan is to activate Rushing at some point this week to literally get back into the swing of things.
“Quality of at-bat, conducting an at-bat obviously, the ability to swing at strikes, take balls, get on base, get a hit. There’s potential slug with both guys. I think it’s a good debate,” Roberts said. “Hitting off the bench is very difficult so we’re trying to figure out who gives us the best chance.
“And to be quite frank, it’s going to be tougher for Dalton given the time he’s missed, and to think that you have [three] games to get back into playoff form, it’s tough to do. It’s not a knock on him, he’s been great for us, but it’s still tough, right, Given that we talk about having the consistency of at-bats recently from Josue. But we have to have those conversations and make a decision.”
Activating both Ohtani and Rushing this week, when the Dodgers have 14 active position players, would require two corresponding moves to make room on the active roster. If De Paula doesn’t get sent down — “I think Josue has done a fantastic job,” Roberts said Tuesday — that might mean rough news for Alexes Call and Freeland, either this week or next.
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