We’re running out of season. With the field of contenders winnowed to the point that only two teams have Playoff Odds between 8% and 80%, much of the intrigue beyond jockeying for seeding concerns a race against the clock. Players have only so much time to recover from injuries, particularly new ones, and so some returns are in doubt. Their availability could very well affect how the playoffs unfold. On that front, it was a weekend featuring bad news for some contenders as they reckoned with their latest bad breaks, figuratively and literally.
Gavin Stone, the unexpected stalwart of the Dodgers rotation, landed on the injured list due to shoulder inflammation, while Jeff McNeil, one of the Mets’ hottest hitters, suffered a fractured wrist. Whit Merrifield, who’s done good work filling in at second base for the Braves, broke a bone in his foot, and, if we shift focus to the fringes of the Wild Card race, the Mariners Luis Castillo strained a hamstring. Each of these situations deserves a closer look, so pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er.
Dodgers
Given last year’s 9.00 ERA in a 31-inning cup of coffee — the product of pitch-tipping, as it turns out — Stone was an unlikely candidate to lead the Dodgers in starts (25) and innings (140.1) to this point. Yet the 25-year-old righty has not only done that, posting a solid 3.53 ERA and 4.03 FIP, he’s been the only member of the team’s season-opening rotation to avoid the IL… until now. Even a couple of extra days to rest before Friday’s scheduled start weren’t enough to keep Stone from being sidelined.
Manager Dave Roberts told reporters on Friday that Stone would be shut down from throwing for at least 10 days, while president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman admitted the team isn’t sure whether he’ll return in time for the postseason, adding, “I’m optimistic he is going to do everything he possibly can. There’s just so much unknown around it that we’re going to do all we can to dominate each day, and hopefully, when he starts throwing, he can ramp up from there. It’s just hard to speculate right now.” Stone’s injury wouldn’t be such a big deal if the Dodgers didn’t have so many key starters already on the IL, including Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Clayton Kershaw.
If the playoffs were to start today, the only certainty would be deadline acquisition Jack Flaherty, with rookie Landon Knack the only other healthy starter who’s pitched acceptably enough (3.00 ERA, 4.55 IP in 54 innings) to merit getting the ball, and both Walker Buehler (5.67 ERA, 5.98 FIP in 54 innings) and Bobby Miller (7.79 ERA, 6.80 FIP in 49.2 innings) trying to find their way out of the tall grass after post-injury struggles.
The most recent starter to wind up on the IL is Kershaw. On August 30, in his seventh start since returning from shoulder surgery, the 36-year-old southpaw departed after just one inning and three runs allowed to the Diamondbacks due to a bone spur in his left big toe. Given the opponent, it was an uncomfortable reminder of the abrupt ending of his 2023 season, but thankfully, the injury wasn’t arm-related — or back-related, for that matter.
The Dodgers are optimistic Kershaw can return without surgery; he’s wearing a walking boot but has been able to play catch. While he’s been erratic when available (4.50 ERA and 3.55 FIP in 30 innings), he had a reasonably strong three-start stretch where he allowed just two runs in 16.1 innings against the Phillies, Brewers, and Cardinals from August 6–18.
If there’s good news, it’s that on Tuesday, Yamamoto is slated to return from a nearly three-month absence due to a rotator cuff strain, facing the Cubs and Shota Imanaga. Before being sidelined with what was initially described as triceps tightness, the 25-year-old righty had pitched exceptionally well, delivering a 2.92 ERA and 2.69 FIP in 74 innings over 14 starts, and a 2.33 ERA and over six innings per turn if you don’t count his one-inning disaster in Seoul in the season’s second game.
Yamamoto has made just two rehab starts of two innings apiece, with pitch counts of 31 and 53 for Triple-A Oklahoma City, so the expectation is that he’ll top out in the vicinity of 70–75 pitches and continue building up from there. As for Glasnow, who has already set career highs for start (22) and innings (134), he’s working his way back from a mid-August diagnosis of elbow tendinitis.
He threw a 25-pitch bullpen on Saturday, his first time throwing off the mound since being sidelined, and will throw at least one more on Tuesday before facing live hitters. With Double-A Tulsa’s season ending on September 15 and Oklahoma City’s on September 22, the Dodgers are hoping to squeeze in at least one rehab start before he returns. One more injury to note. If Friday’s news about Stone wasn’t bad enough, the sight of Teoscar Hernández departing after being hit on the right foot by Matthew Boyd was particularly nerve-wracking, as the 31-year-old slugger has come up big time and again for the team, hitting .266/.331/.488 (128 wRC+) with 28 homers.
Fortunately, he’s been diagnosed with a contusion and could be back early this week. As with an offense that has largely bludgeoned opponents into submission since the returns of Mookie Betts and Max Muncy — they’ve averaged 5.56 runs per game since August 19 while going 13-5, buying them breathing room in the NL West race — the Dodgers have the starting pitching to win it all. Yet their chances of doing so come down to how many of these guys will be available and effective in October. In that light, their first-round bye looms large, particularly compared to the other teams in this roundup.
Mets
Thanks to a nine-game winning streak that briefly carried them into sole possession of the third NL Wild Card slot, the Mets have been the majors’ hottest team, but if they’re to secure a playoff spot, they’ll have to do it without McNeil, who is expected to miss four to six weeks — the rest of the regular season and then some.
The 32-year-old second baseman fractured his right wrist during the fifth inning of Friday’s game, when he was hit by a curveball from the Reds’ Brandon Williamson while trying to bunt: Neither McNeil nor the Mets initially believed the injury was particularly serious, as he stayed in the game, ran the bases and played the field in the sixth inning. Only when he was readying himself to bat again did he realize he couldn’t continue. Via MLB.com: “I thought nothing of it really, it was a breaking ball: 95 percent sure it hit the [wrist] guard I was wearing,” McNeil said. “It didn’t hurt that bad running the bases, and then I started to feel it a little bit warming up the next inning, just throwing the ball to first base… Went into the cage, and it just didn’t feel good to swing. So it was more that turning-over motion that made it flare up.”
Harrison Bader pinch-hit for McNeil, and Jose Iglesias, who had pinch-hit for Jesse Winker earlier in the inning, took over at second base in a game the Mets won 6-4 in 10 innings on a Mark Vientos walk-off homer. An MRI taken on Saturday revealed McNeils’ fracture. At best, his timeline would make him available some time in early to mid-October, should the Mets still be playing.
Based on his overall numbers, McNeil is in the midst of his second subpar season in a row, hitting .238/.308/.384 with 12 homers and five steals. Both his 98 wRC+ and 1.3 WAR are his lowest marks since 2021, but his overall numbers undersell his in-season rebound. When the Mets started the season 24-35, McNeil hit just .227/.296/.320 (80 wRC+)…
