Dodgers fans couldn't be less surprised by Brusdar Graterol injury update at spring training

When Dave Roberts acknowledged this week that the Los Angeles Dodgers are “slow playing” Brusdar Graterol this spring, it felt less like breaking news and more like confirmation of what everyone already suspected.

According to Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic, Roberts said the ball "hasn’t come out the way they’d expected" as Graterol continues to work his way back from a shoulder injury. This is the same shoulder that forced him to the injured list late in 2024, required labrum surgery that November, and kept kept him from appearing in a single game — major league or rehab — in 2025.

Dodgers fans watched Graterol gut through the 2024 postseason, including three appearances against the New York Yankees in the World Series. He gave them 2 1/3 innings before the bill came due, and the pattern is all too familiar.

This isn’t even the first time Graterol’s medical file has altered a franchise’s plans. Dodgers fans remember the three-team trade saga with the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins that fell apart over concerns about Graterol's arm before the Mookie Betts deal was finalized.

Graterol stayed. He thrived. He became one of the most electric arms in baseball when healthy — 100 mph sinkers, bowling-ball movement, postseason fire. But “when healthy” has always done a lot of work in that sentence.

Brusdar Graterol's injury update is not surprising for Dodgers fans

Fortunately, the Dodgers have the luxury of patience here. This is a pitching staff layered with depth — even if arms like Blake Snell, Evan Phillips, and Brock Stewart are also progressing deliberately. Dodgers fans are used to this. They've seen stars managed conservatively with an eye on championships, not regular-season optics.

The anxiety is natural. Graterol is only 27. He’s supposed to be entering his prime, not navigating the gray area of shoulder recovery.

What lingers most is the 2024 World Series memory. Graterol wasn’t active until he had to be. He showed up anyway. There’s something admirable about that — sacrificing short-term certainty for long-term rings. But the cost of that kind of urgency is often paid later.

This spring update doesn’t feel like a setback so much as a checkpoint. A reminder that shoulder recoveries don’t follow scripts and that labrum repairs don’t care about Opening Day countdowns. Maybe most of all, it's a reminder that Dodgers fans have become conditioned to process pitcher health news with a shrug and a long-term lens.