After a quiet start to 2019 Spring Training for the Los Angeles Dodgers, everything changed when it became known Clayton Kershaw needed to halt his throwing program for “a few days.” Kershaw attempted to then play catch but felt more discomfort.
He’s scheduled to test his throwing shoulder again on Thursday with another round of catch. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has remained optimistic and expressed minimal concern over the inflammation in Kershaw’s shoulder.
While Kershaw and Roberts were hesitant to provide much details about the issues, Dodgers pitching Rick Honeycutt inadvertently identified the issue to be with a “joint.” That led to Roberts confirming the following day Kershaw’s shoulder wasn’t feeling right.
Although Honeycutt hadn’t been in camp after undergoing back surgery, he sensed from afar that his ace was less than 100 percent. “I actually kind of had a premonition after he threw live, I just wanted to make sure where he was at that day,” Honeycutt said.
“He didn’t sound great that day, so I felt like something was just hopefully not right that day. I feel extremely bad that I wasn’t here to go through that part but I did talk with him. Hopefully, the medication he’s on and stuff helps, I know it’s a very frustrating time for him.
“You want Spring Training to be as positive as possible so you want things to keep progressing and I knew there would be valleys in his progression. He just wanted it to be positive.”
Bullpen coach Mark Prior has kept Honeycutt apprised on the daily happenings with the pitching staff. Honeycutt also has access to video via an external hard drive. He kept close tabs on Kershaw but didn’t deduce anything from watching film.
“Kersh is going to power through whatever,” Honeycutt said. “It wasn’t like you saw anything that jumped out of the video that would say, ‘Whoa, something is not right.’
“So what he is going through has got to be a feel. It’s a feeling of the throws being proper and it’s not that you see something mechanical that’s the issue, it more just going on inside the joint.”
