Also, the Dodgers had a tough decision to make on Tuesday, when reliever Tommy Edman is expected to return from ankle surgery that sidelined him for the first 2 1/2 months of the season.
But this time, it wasn’t one of the team’s younger players who got the short end of the stick.
Instead, the Dodgers elected to designate veteran bench player Santiago Espinal for assignment as a complementary move to reliever Edman, manager Dave Roberts announced Monday night.
“Espy has been great for us,” Roberts said, praising the limited contributions the All-Star shortstop has made while hitting .268 with a home run in 36 games this year.
“But,” added Roberts, “[with] to fit right now with our football team, it doesn’t make sense.”
Of course, Edman’s return significantly reduced Espinal’s role for the two-time defending World Series champion.
Edman will play second base (alternating for the team currently consisting of Miguel Rojas and Alex Freeland) and left field (rotating for the alternate team of Ryan Ward and Alex Call). He can also spell Max Muncy at third base if needed, or Mookie Betts at short.
Whatever little playing time Espinal was getting before would be gone now.
Still, in most of their previous lineups, the Dodgers had opted to keep (or, at one point after he was briefly DFA’d last month, re-signed) Espinal and sent down one of their younger players to get regular at-bats in triple-A, instead.
In this case, Freeland or Ward are the most likely candidates; especially since Edman could have stepped into either of his roles at second or left back, respectively.
Instead, both survived for now, going on to become the longest regular season games of their major league careers.
Freeland had already been selected to the minors once this year, slumping to a .235 batting average and .646 OPS when Mookie Betts returned from a layoff in early May. The switch-hitter didn’t last long, returning to the majors a few weeks later. However, his production has remained inconsistent, following an 8-for-26 stretch with a 1-for-13 slump over his last six games. Overall, he now has a .230 average and a .653 OPS on the season, albeit with a strong defensive secondary.
Ward has been a very interesting player recently, in his first extended stint at the MLB level after seven years in the Dodgers farm system.
The 28-year-old rookie is hitting .250 in 14 games this season, but flashes raw power that has forced his way onto the Dodgers’ radar in the minors. He has seven extra-base hits (four doubles, three home runs), 11 RBIs (including four in a grand slam at Pittsburgh last week) and a .575 slugging percentage.
It’s a small sample of left-handed hitters, and has included 13 strikeouts in 43 plate appearances (all but three have come from right-handed pitching).
But, after his long journey to the fair, it was enough to sustain him for a while.
