MINNEAPOLIS — The Dodgers are in a holding pattern after two key players left their 2-1 win Monday against the Minnesota Twins with injuries.
Right fielder Kyle Tucker’s availability Tuesday is in question, after he exited during the top of the second inning with back spasms. Manager Dave Roberts described Tucker’s status as “day to day,” adding that he was “not overly concerned.”
Catcher Dalton Rushing probably won’t be in the lineup Tuesday, Roberts said, even though he passed an initial round of concussion testing. He’ll have to undergo a second round on Tuesday, and the Dodgers don’t see a need to rush him back. They plan to call in a taxi-squad catcher as a safeguard as Rushing continues through the protocol.
The game had its bright spots, including home runs from Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, and left-hander Eric Lauer’s six no-hit innings after an opener. But if either Tucker’s or Rushing’s recovery stalls, the loss would hamper a team already weathering a rash of injuries.
Tucker
Tucker’s lower back “lit up” when he took the field in the bottom of the second inning, he said. He played through it, hoping it would subside.
“I didn’t really know how that first at-bat was going to go,” Tucker said, noting that rotation aggravated the injury. “Because I was just basically seeing how I felt on deck, and finishing the swing kind of hurt.”
He swung at the first pitch and then watched the next four for a walk — and Roberts saw Tucker wince. Then Tucker advanced to second on Tommy Edman’s single, and was replaced by pinch-runner Alex Call soon after.
“Once he got to second base, it was just more of just not seeing him move the right way, and didn’t want to put him in any more jeopardy,” Roberts said. “And so I felt it was just smart to just pivot right there.”
Tucker said he’s had his back “lock up” once before, a couple of years ago. He played the next day. The spasm Monday felt less severe, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be back in the lineup Tuesday.
“Hopefully I can … wake up tomorrow, feel fine and get in there,” Tucker said. “We’re just TBD on that.”
Tucker, in his first season with the Dodgers after signing a four-year deal worth $240 million this winter, entered Monday with a .705 on base plus slugging, on pace for his worst offensive year by that measure since his 2018 rookie season with the Houston Astros. But he still lengthens the Dodgers lineup with the threat of a breakout.
Tucker recently went nine games with a .303 batting average. But then he went hitless in the Dodgers’ two losses to the Baltimore Orioles last weekend.
“If we can get him back to being who he is, then we’ll bet on the results,” Roberts said before the game Monday, noting Tucker’s reputation for controlling the strike zone. “It’s not something that we might see tonight. But I think going here forward, that’s something that I think we’re going to see.”
Rushing
Dodgers opener Will Klein’s first pitch tipped off Twins leadoff hitter Trevor Larnach’s bat and hit Rushing in the mask.
Rushing took a moment to compose himself, putting his glove in the dirt for stability. But he remained in the game until Chuckie Robinson replaced him behind the plate in the bottom of the third.
“Got me square on the top of the head,” Rushing said. “Rung me pretty good. My head was just pounding the next couple innings, and even through that first at-bat. I know it was a one-pitch at-bat but, as bad as it sounds, I was looking for a strike to hit. It wasn’t comfortable.
“But we’re good now.”
Rushing, like many catchers, has sustained concussions before, most recently in 2023.
“This one was not near as severe as ‘23,” Rushing said. “In ’23 I got hit with a backswing with a bat in the back of the head. I tried to stand up the next pitch and fell down. I would say that one was pretty bad.
Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman celebrate Monday’s win over the Twins.
(Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
“But this one, it was just a headache … and a little bit of nauseous feeling. Other than that, it was a pretty short stint.”
The Dodgers were already down one catcher going into Monday. Rushing took over as the primary backstop the last two weeks with Will Smith sidelined by a neck injury. Smith did not travel with the team to Minnesota, but the team hopes he could be activated during the next home stand.
Lauer follows opener
Dodgers left-hander Eric Lauer voiced his distaste for pitching behind an opener while with the Blue Jays. But he clarified those comments when he joined the Dodgers.
“If you ask most starters in the league, they would probably have the same response, that they don’t like it,” Lauer said last month. “But it doesn’t mean that I’m not willing to do it. It doesn’t mean that I’m not a team player.”
Eric Lauer pitched six hitless innings against the Twins on Monday.
(Matt Krohn / AP)
On Monday, the Dodgers asked him to enter the game in the second inning, after Klein gave up a run and two hits in the first. Lauer followed with six hitless innings.
“We’ve been very forthright,” Roberts said before the game. “I know he’s appreciated that. For me, just telling him the thought behind it and the why and still giving him confidence to know that we expect him to take down the most outs in the game. He’s all-in. He’s all-in on winning. I do think that just getting ahead of it, being honest with him.”
Roberts said he told Lauer the plan after Sunday’s game, explaining that he thought having Klein face the power-hitting right-handers near the top of the Twins lineup would give Lauer the best chance to go deeper into the game.
Lauer just had to push back his pregame routine by an inning — and the Dodgers would not deviate from that script.
“My issue is more with, when plans change,” Lauer said after the game. “It makes it a little harder. In general, [an opener] makes it a little harder to prepare, but it makes it way harder when the plan changes in-game. So being able to have that, that solidity and know what the idea is, what the plan is, and what’s going to be executed just allows me to prepare to be my best when I get out there. That’s all I really want.”
Klein surrendering a tying home run to right-handed hitting Byron Buxton wasn’t exactly part of that plan. But Lauer blanked the Twins before the bullpen finished it. The three walks he issued accounted for the only baserunners against him.
The Dodgers (50-29) scored on solo homers from Shohei Ohtani in the first and Freddie Freeman in the sixth.