Dodgers: 3 injuries that have hurt LAD the most during current slump

There was a time, way back when, when the Los Angeles Dodgers were challenging not only for NL West supremacy but the best record in all of Major League Baseball’s illustrious history.

Can you smell it? Can you smell the ink being spilled by Bill Plaschke about how this team might blitz the league to the tune of 126 wins?

It was just a few weeks ago, but it all feels so distant now.

Thanks to a cavalcade of injuries, the Dodgers still look like a good-to-great team most nights, and they have the depth to absorb several punishing blows. Instead of running and hiding in the National League, though, they’re keeping pace with the Giants and Padres, one enemy they anticipated and one they thought they’d left in the dust.

Along the way in a 162-game season, even the greatest teams are bound to be hampered by injuries, both short- and long-term, both mysterious and immediately diagnosed.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers have been hit by a flurry of both varieties all at once.

Prior to Monday’s game, Los Angeles underwent another massive roster shuffle, sending David Price to the IL with a Grade 2 hamstring strain, activating Gavin Lux, and moving several ancillary pieces back and forth to the Alternate Site.

It’s tough to find any form of consistency without the majority of your stars, and it’s tough to hold down an opposing offense when half your pitching depth isn’t pitching. All things considered — and with all due respect to several other injuries — these three maladies have been the most impactful thus far.

These 3 Dodgers injuries have hurt the most in April 2021.

3. Zach McKinstry

The Dodgers did not know what an essential piece they were bringing to the bigs when they promoted utility man Zach McKinstry following an impressive spring training showing.

In 17 games at the big league level — spent at second, third, left and right — McKinstry slashed .296/.328/.556 with a 144 OPS+ that papered over many of the roster’s other emerging issues.

Unfortunately, just as soon as he arrived, he vanished yet again. McKinstry was supposed to be a do-everything bat in the Chris Taylor mold who could’ve covered for the early absences of the team’s stars like Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger. Regrettably, he’s now on the shelf for the medium-term battling an oblique strain, perhaps the most undefinable injury in baseball. Will it be a month? Two months? We just don’t know, and we won’t be welcoming him back until it all “feels right.” Nebulous ’til the end.

McKinstry’s absence has also led to more playing time for Edwin Rios, a similarly young utility bat who’s also … 4-42 on the year and 0-for-his-last-21. This team absolutely misses McKinstry’s versatility and the way he allows their bigger names to struggle without the group missing a beat.

2. Tony Gonsolin

Remember when the Dodgers’ pitching depth was so special they could send both the overqualified Tony Gonsolin and David Price to the bullpen in favor of Dustin May?

Now, both the team’s sixth and seventh starters are gone; Price’s hamstring strain sent him to the IL Monday, and Gonsolin has only recently begun a throwing program, encountering painful shoulder soreness the last time he tried to do so several weeks ago.

Down to the last line of defense, pitching depth-wise, just three weeks into the year? Not how LA drew it up.

Gonsolin hasn’t appeared this season, but the impact of his absence becomes obvious when you’re forced to look at who closes when Kenley Jansen isn’t available. Joe Kelly’s not walking through that door. Brusdar Graterol isn’t built up yet. Perhaps Corey Knebel could’ve entered the circle of trust if he hadn’t struggled before succumbing to his own potentially season-ending injury this week?

Massaging an extended late lead on Sunday, the Dodgers would’ve preferred to turn to a trusted innings-eater like Gonsolin. Instead, they were forced to go to reclamation project Jimmy Nelson, who couldn’t hold San Diego down. Once the game was tied, it was time for DFA candidate Garrett Cleavinger.

We’re ranking Gonsolin ahead of Kelly and Knebel here simply because we trust his guile and pitchability more in such situations. Knebel was partially down the comeback trail, and Wild Joe isn’t in the same league when the bleeding needs to be stopped. Losing Gonsolin has knocked all the wrong people up a peg.