Amidst a Spring Training that’s come with plenty of negative injury news for the Los Angeles Dodgers, they caught a break with Corey Seager during the middle of the month. He suffered a sprained left knee on March 11, with the recovery timetable putting his availability for Opening Day in jeopardy.
Seager began conditioning drills on March 20, then participated in a Minor League game four days later. He got four at-bats in, but was not able to play the infield or run the bases.
The soon-to-be-28-year-old advanced to playing shortstop in the days that followed, which put him on track to be in the Dodgers’ lineup come April 4 in San Diego. Seager said recently he was pleased with his smooth recovery process.
Seager played in another Minor League game on Tuesday and after using Wednesday as a day off, is expected to join the Dodgers for their three-game exhibition Freeway Series, according to ESPN’s Doug Padilla:
Corey Seager (knee) will play in a minor league game today, get Wednesday off and play in Thursday's Freeway Series opener.
— Doug Padilla (@DougPadilla) March 29, 2016
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Seager will play five innings on Thursday, via Bill Plunkett of the OC Register:
Corey Seager has a scheduled day off today. Will play first five innings with #Dodgers in Freeway Series opener Thursday
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) March 30, 2016
Seager batted .337/.425/.561 with four home runs, eight doubles, 17 RBIs, a .421 wOBA and 175 wRC+ in 27 regular-season games with the Dodgers in 2015. He then became the youngest position player to start a postseason game in franchise history.
Seager enters the 2016 season as the consensus No. 1 overall prospect, sweeping the honor from Baseball America, Baseball Prospectus, ESPN and MLB.com.
