Freddie Freeman is among the Los Angeles Dodgers who have been limited for the start of Spring Training workouts at Camelback Ranch, with his case tied to still recovering from offseason right ankle surgery.
The 35-year-old has been limited to fielding and hitting drills thus far, but he is hoping to begin running again sometime this week.
Freeman is unlikely to be in the Dodgers lineup when they begin Cactus League play on Thursday. However, he has set a goal of getting into his first game roughly a week after that.
As for the Tokyo Series next month, Freeman maintained confidence that he will be in the Dodgers lineup when they open the regular season against the Chicago Cubs, via Cary Osborne of Dodger Insider:
“I am perfectly on track for that,” Freeman said. “We’ll get a better sense when I’m not in an inflated bubble helping me run, but probably middle of next week by the end of the next week I’ll have a really good sense of how I’m feeling.”
The Dodgers have just 20 Spring Training games before breaking camp, and even with the reduced number, Freeman should have plenty of time to prepare for Opening Day.
The eight-time All-Star is entering his 16th MLB season and fourth with the Dodgers. He has been one baseball’s iron men over the last few years, playing in 626 of a possible 648 regular season games since the 2021 season.
Freddie Freeman gives speech in Dodgers clubhouse
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts kept the tradition going by delivering his annual message in the clubhouse before the first full-squad workout at Camelback Ranch last week.
With that also came speeches from some of the team’s veterans, including Freeman. “Every single night since I’ve been a professional baseball player, is when I lay my head on my pillow at night, did I give everything I had to get better that day?” Freeman began.
“I’ve been doing that a long time. This is my fourth year wearing this uniform, and I got to win it for the first time in this uniform last year. That means everything. Mookie’s got three titles, I’ve got two, Max, a lot of these guys have two titles.
“Like Mookie said in that video, we want more. When you win one, you want to win another one. You just want to keep winning and winning and winning. And when you put on this uniform, this is the epitome of baseball right here. To be able to put this uniform on every day, when you walk in this clubhouse, make it feel special.
“Because it is special to put this uniform on. A lot of us are coming in here grinding already. We’re here at 7 a.m. trying to get our bodies ready to do this. When you win this thing at the end of it, everything is worth it at the end. It really is.
“A lot of us went through a lot last year to do that and put a ring on. I promise you guys it is worth it in the end. So come in here every day, put this uniform on and make it mean something to you, just like Doc was saying. And we’ll see you at the end of this thing.”
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