In effort to bolster their starting rotation and add a bat to their lineup, the Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Rich Hill and Josh Reddick in a five-player trade with the Oakland Athletics.
Reddick started in his first game with the Dodgers, while Hill spent the past few days working toward a return from a blister on the middle finger of his left hand. That hit a snag after the southpaw threw at Dodger Stadium and felt the remnants of a new blister.
That resulted in Hill getting scratched from his scheduled start in the series finale against the Boston Red Sox. As for Reddick, his time with the Dodgers has gotten off to a rocky start.
He entered play on Saturday 0-for-12 with one walk and two strikeouts in three starts. Despite not having much career success against left-handed pitching, Reddick started against Eduardo Rodriguez.
The 29-year-old outfielder didn’t collect his first hit since joining the Dodgers until the eighth inning. According to Robert Morales of the OC Register, Reddick expressed a sense of relief to get it out of the way:
“Yeah, I know the whole team, the dugout, was just … once I finally got it, they were going to give me some good times and give me a smile over there,” he said. “So to get it out of the way now is a relief, but I would have liked to have had it a little earlier.”
Further adding to some of the frustration for Reddick was he regularly made solid contact. On Saturday he was robbed by David Ortiz of an RBI base hit. Adding insult to injury, the start in the field was Ortiz’s first since last August.
Reddick this season is batting .282/.353/.425 with eight home runs and 28 RBIs.
