Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias rejoined the team ahead of Tuesday’s series opener against the Tampa Bay Rays after being reinstated from administrative leave.
Major League Baseball is currently undergoing an investigation into a domestic violence incident that Urias got into with his girlfriend at the Beverly Center last week. But due to MLB’s inability to obtain video of the incident, they had no choice but to reinstate him when the maximum seven days of being on administrative leave were up.
With the way the current collective bargaining agreement is set up, the Dodgers do not have the ability to release or send Urias down to the Minor Leagues, so they had no other options except to put him on the active roster.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman commented on the situation, saying they are leaving it in the hands of MLB for now, via Jorge Castillo of the L.A. Times:
“It’s something that MLB took control of; they run an extremely thorough process,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said of the Urias case. “And after going through it, they made the decision to reinstate. It’s tough for us to elaborate much right now. But one thing we do know is that it is not standard for them to reinstate after just the seven days. So that says something to us. . . Hopefully, we’ll know more in the next couple weeks, but it’s something that’s tough for us to elaborate much on right now.”
Urias did not say much more than Friedman on the matter, but he did add that he is ‘cooperating’ with the investigation and he is ‘happy’ to be back with his teammates. Urias addressed the rest of his Dodgers teammates for about five minutes in the clubhouse before Tuesday night’s game.
Considering he hasn’t pitched in over a week, Urias was not used in the Dodgers’ victory over the Rays on Tuesday. He did throw a bullpen session and is expected to be ready to pitch by the weekend’s series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Where MLB plans to go with their investigation from here remains to be seen as they likely would need to obtain the video before issuing any discipline on the 22-year-old.
