Blake Snell is set to meet with Dodgers team doctors on Monday as the parties try to determine the next step in his recovery from left shoulder soreness. Snell’s shoulder is still bothering him, to the point that plans to resume playing catch earlier this week were put on hold until Snell received a check-up from the medical staff.
Snell has been on the 15-day injured list since April 3, and tests haven’t revealed any structural damage within his throwing shoulder. He did start throwing in mid-April and had one bullpen session, but continued discomfort in his shoulder scrapped plans for another pen session on April 23. MLB.com’s Sonja Chen writes that Snell has received an injection in his shoulder since April 23, though the treatment didn’t appear to do much to solve the issue.
More will be known about Snell’s status once the check-up actually takes place tomorrow, though it can’t be considered a good sign that the two-time Cy Young Award winner has now gone close to three weeks without throwing, and what was initially thought to be a relatively minor shoulder issue has now cost Snell an increasingly big chunk of the 2025 season.
Injuries have long been a subplot of Snell’s career, yet when healthy, Snell has looked like one of the better pitchers in the sport over the last decade. The Dodgers were encouraged enough by this upside to sign Snell to a five-year, $182MM free agent deal this past winter, even though a variety of injuries in the first half of the 2024 season limited him to 104 innings with the Giants last year.
Given this track record, nobody would be surprised if Snell again looks like an ace whenever he returns to the L.A. mound. The fact that Snell hit the IL after just two starts in Dodger Blue is certainly ominous, however, and those concerns won’t dissipate unless Snell gets some good news in tomorrow’s check-up, or (more directly) when he is actually on a clear track to a return to action.
Tyler Glasnow is also set to meet with team doctors tomorrow, though this appears to be something of a final step before the right-hander gets the green light to start a formal rehab process. Glasnow went on the 15-day IL on April 28 due to his own case of shoulder inflammation, and that placement was soon followed by news of a 10-14 day shutdown. That shutdown period is now complete, as manager Dave Roberts told Chen and other reporters that Glasnow is pain-free and started playing catch this weekend.
Assuming tomorrow’s check-up goes well, it will still be a while before Glasnow is back off the IL, as he’ll need time (and probably at least one minor league rehab start) to fully rebuild his arm strength. But especially given the uncertainty surrounding Snell, Glasnow’s return to at least light throwing is a good sign.
Snell and Glasnow are two of a whopping 13 pitchers on the Dodgers’ seemingly ever-crowded injured list, and Shohei Ohtani could technically be considered the 14th given how Ohtani hasn’t pitched since undergoing a UCL-related surgery in September 2023. However, a major name is set to be activated next weekend, as Clayton Kershaw threw what is expected to be his final minor league rehab outing today.
Kershaw tossed 57 pitches over four innings with Triple-A Oklahoma City in today’s start, which was the fourth outing of his rehab stint. Kershaw underwent surgeries on his left plantar plate and a torn left meniscus last November, and began the season on the 60-day injured list as part of that recovery process. Because the Dodgers’ season began earlier than usual due to their series in Tokyo with the Cubs, May 17 represents the first day that Kershaw is eligible to be activated off the 60-day IL. Whether Kershaw is activated on the exact day or the next, the future Hall-of-Famer will make his 2025 debut during next weekend’s series against the Angels.
Once Kershaw is back, Los Angeles will be back up to a five-man rotation that also includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May. Since Yamamoto and Sasaki are on once-a-week pitching schedules to emulate their usage in Japan, the Dodgers should still deploy an unofficial six-man staff to make up for those extra starts, with the likes of Landon Knack, Ben Casparius, Justin Wrobleski, or others stepping into spot duty.