Perhaps no team in all of baseball has more depth than the Los Angeles Dodgers, and that has certainly been put to the test throughout the course of the 2018 season.
Already more than 100 games into the season, a number of players are dealing with nagging injuries, and that is keeping two of the team’s outfielders out of the lineup in Sunday’s series finale against the Houston Astros.
According to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, Matt Kemp has an ankle contusion and Yasiel Puig is dealing with oblique soreness:
Dave Roberts said Matt Kemp has contusion on ankle. Yasiel Puig has oblique soreness.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) August 5, 2018
Puig recently missed a couple weeks of action due to an oblique strain, so this is a reoccurring injury and he could potentially land back on the disabled list:
Puig’s injury is the same that put him on the disabled list and another stint is possible.
— Ken Gurnick (@kengurnick) August 5, 2018
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went on to add that Kemp will be available to pinch hit on Sunday while Puig will not.
Kemp’s injury may have occurred during Saturday’s game when he was chasing after a fly ball down the left-field line and ran into the wall in foul territory. It doesn’t seem like his injury is too serious if he is available to pinch hit, but with a day off on Monday, it makes sense to give him a day off Sunday to get extra rest.
Joc Pederson and Kiké Hernandez get the starts in the corner outfield positions in Kemp and Puig’s spots on Sunday.
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