The Los Angeles Dodgers placed Yoshinobu Yamamoto (right triceps tightness) and Michael Grove (right intercostal strain) on the 15-day injured list prior to the series finale against the Kansas City Royals.
Yamamoto going on the IL appeared a likely scenario in the wake of being removed early from his start on Saturday. He threw 28 pitches over two scoreless innings, but only 14 were for strike.
Yamamoto did not show any clear signs of battling an injury but his final pitch was 92.9 mph, his slowest of the night. Furthermore, Yamamoto’s fastball velocity was down an average of 1.4 mph. He did top out at 95.9 mph in the start, which was a slight increase from his season average of 95.5 mph.
The 25-year-old revealed he felt the tightness during the week but it had dissipated by Saturday. That was until Yamamoto began warming up for the start and the issue returned, though it was not believed to be serious.
“From what I understood, he had soreness during the week. Tyler’s (Glasnow) going to have soreness during the week, and they get through it, they pitch and they make their starts,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts explained.
“I knew he had soreness, that’s why we pushed him back, but again, I didn’t know until the second inning that he couldn’t go back out there for the third inning. And so again, if we would have known that he couldn’t pitch, we would have done something about it, but we just didn’t know.”
Yamamoto threw a season-high 106 pitches over seven shutout innings against the New York Yankees on June 7. His next scheduled start was originally due to be Thursday before the Dodgers pushed it back to provide Yamamoto with extra rest.
Grove was first to pitch after Yamamoto on Saturday, going two innings and allowing one run while collecting three strikeouts.
Overall this season, Grove is 4-3 with a 5.06 ERA and 1.18 WHIP in 28 games (two starts).
How Dodgers replace Yoshinobu Yamamoto
J.P. Feyereisen and Michael Petersen were added to the Dodgers roster to take the places of Yamamoto and Grove. Joe Kelly was also transferred to the 60-day injured list.
But in terms of the starting rotation, Bobby Miller is scheduled to be activated Wednesday, and he effectively is going to fill the void left by Yamamoto’s injury. The Dodgers originally were planning to temporarily have a six-man starting rotation.
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