by Cary Osborne
The scene at Dodger Stadium on Friday, four hours before the Dodgers opened up the second half of the 2024 season, was the picture of the cavalry on its way.
Mookie Betts, who earlier in the afternoon took ground balls from the shortstop position, was running in shallow left field. Tyler Glasnow simultaneously was pitching to Jason Heyward. An hour before that, Joe Kelly was activated from the injured list.
All that while Clayton Kershaw prepared for his rehab start for the Triple-A Oklahoma City Baseball Club.
If all goes well, manager Dave Roberts said, the conversation could turn to Kershaw’s next start being his first as a Dodger in 2024.
The Dodgers are getting healthy in what has been a challenging season that has seen three-fifths of the opening season starting rotation, the closer and other high-leverage bullpen arms, and Betts, Max Muncy and Jason Heyward spend considerable time on the injured list.
Glasnow is targeting a Wednesday return against the Giants. He said that he began to feel better last week and described the lower back tightness that put him on the injured list on July 9 as “tall guy back” where he felt a little twinge.
He and manager Dave Roberts both looked at the timing of the event as a positive and a reset as the right-handed pitcher is 11 innings away from reaching his career high (120).
“I was confident either way that I was going to be able to throw a lot of innings, but (the reset is) definitely helpful,” Glasnow said.
Glasnow threw three innings of a sim game on Friday.
Roberts gave updates on others on the injured list:
· Reliever Brusdar Graterol, who hasn’t appeared in a game this year for the Dodgers, has transitioned his rehab and is looking at a Sunday appearance with Oklahoma City.
· Starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto has progressed to throwing from 135 feet, but hasn’t thrown off a mound yet.
· Betts will have an X-ray in the next few days to see if the fractured bones on his left hand are healing properly. He will be doing a grip strength test today, and once it gets to 85%, he can swing a bat.
· Heyward could be activated from the injured list in the next few days.
Dodgers health report is starting to change for the good was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.