Dodgers Territory - Signs of Life for Offense? Who's the Odd Man Out with Snell Return Looming?

Episode Date: May 4, 2026

Alanna Rizzo, Katie Woo, and Clint Pasillas are back with the latest on the Los Angeles Dodgers! The team lost 2 of 3 in St. Louis over the weekend but showed some signs of life on offense. (03:09) Where are things at with the lineup and how has the illness going around the clubhouse affected production? Katie shares her insight. (11:09) Justin Wrobleski put together another great start as the stopper on Sunday. Is he at all in danger of losing his job in the starting rotation with Blake Snell's return looming? The hosts discuss who could be the odd man out between Wrobo, Roki Sasaki, and Emmet Sheehan. (27:44) In DT Headlines, we catch up on the latest from the injured list. How far away are the returns of Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, and Kiké Hernandez? And who saw the Brusdar Graterol return to action on their magic 8 ball? (37:12) The Dodgers head to Houston to face the Astros and their terrible pitching staff. What do we need to see against the 'Stros? 🌶️ If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Plans start at $15/month at MintMobile.com/Territory Check out DT merch at https://dodgersterritoryshop.com Support Guidry's Guardian at https://guidrysguardian.org Find Clint on YouTube at https://youtube.com/@alldodgers Follow Katie's work at The Athletic https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/author/katie-woo/  Subscribe to Dodgers Territory on YouTubeRate and review our podcast on Apple and SpotifySee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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wherever you get your podcasts. It's funny, when I was first putting this rundown together, I had a really stupid line in here. The black eyed peas want to know, where is the slug? And then I took it out because that's really stupid. Come to the Monday live episode of Brand New Show for you on Dodgers Territory. I'm Alonarizzo.

That is Katie Wu, also with the athletic Clint Paceas, holding down the fort on this next 30 minutes. So happy that you guys are here. Thanks for being with us. We appreciate it very much. Like us, rate us five stars. Be sure to subscribe as we try. try to make our way to 20,000 subs as we are part of the Fowl Territory Network site that you guys are with us.

Get your comments into the chat. We want to talk to you. And may the fourth be with you as I am the biggest Star Wars fan in the history of the franchise. Some news ladies and gentlemen at the top of the show, Shohei Otani named NL Pitcher of the month. 0.60 ERA over five starts. Katie, you see him live and in living color in person. very fitting of the award for the NL pitcher of the month. What do you like when you see him go out there and take the ball every fifth day?

It's the first one of his career. And I think this is a precursor to what Dodgers fans and Otani fans hope to be wondering all season long is can he win the National League Cy Young Award? I think this is the first time that we've seen Otani really hone in on the pitching side of his two-way game. We've talked about the built-in time off, the six-man rotation, stacking up starts against the. off day when possible. And then, of course, the big topic, is he going to DH on his start days? This is all by design, because I think if the first month of the season can tell us anything about Shohei, the pitcher, he certainly has the stuff if he can keep it up to win that Sayyung award. The National League is a very, very competitive league. Obviously, Paul Skeens, his own

teammates, Yamamoto. But if the goal is for Shohei to win his first in Say Young, he's won the MVP four times, he's won the World Series multiple times, never won the Sai Young, he's off to a start. I mean, this is a guy that wants to check off every single box, right? I mean, he had a list of goals for himself all through his youth. I want to do this by the age of 35. I want to do this by the time I'm 22, this, that, and the other thing. Sy Young, I would imagine, is a big box clint to check off last year. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was your pick and your want for National League's Sy Young Award winner. What do you say about Shoah getting that award this year? Hey, I'll keep it simple. step one done when each pitcher of the month and you're probably going to be oh is that how it works

easy yeah easy breezy lemon sneezy he's good he's really good like to see him get back to hitting a little bit we'll talk about that later but great great first month on the bump for showtime all right congratulations show hey otani on your first national league pitcher of the award picture of the month award let's get into the big ticket and talk about that lackluster offense Katie, we talked about it after the Marlins series. Not a great series with the Marlins, I mean Cardinals. We talked about the fact that we wanted them to go into St. Louis, your old stomping grounds, and try to get that offense going a little bit, and they didn't. It still kind of looks a little bit anemic. What are you noticing, ma'am, in terms of their at-bats, their approach. What's going on?

Yeah, I mean, one, credit to the Cardinals pitchers, the first two I've had a chance to see many, many times in Matthew Libertor and Michael McGreevy and I think both said you know they didn't really love their stuff all that much but we're still able to find the way to get through at bats and a part of that is because the Dodgers approach collectively just wasn't great. It got a little bit better

on Sunday but when we look at the Dodgers lineup, we think this is a lineup that hits home runs. They have not had a home run in six games. I have no idea the last time that happened because they seem to have one at least every game. There's no slug in this lineup right now and I think it just you go through the box where you're seeing a lot singles. You're seeing, you know, a lot of base hits, but not a lot of production. The runners

in scoring position production has been low. And it's difficult on a multitude of reasons. I think when you're looking at the lineup, we've already talked about Dave Roberts moving Kyle Tucker down, trying to find a spot for Freddie Freeman up top, trying to find a place for Andy Paas, who has cooled off. And a big part of Andy Paa has success, Dave Roberts believed, was that he was that he was sitting down in the order and could kind of take advantage of pitchers meeting to get through the first six, six or seven hitters to get to him. But with so many hitters kind of slumping, the clubhouse is still really sick. There's not a lot of lineup change that Dave Roberts can do. He has to just go out there and hope that his players have a better approach.

Shoah went oh for St. Louis, did not record a hit in the series. Kyle Tucker has the quietest 10 game on base streak in baseball. Freddie Freeman, not a lot of slug there either. These are guys that like no one is worried about. I get it. And every team is going to slump like this. But when you see this offense lose its slug, to me that points to a lack of collective approach. We said this last series, but the Astros have their own pitching woes. They're going with an opener tonight. We'll see if this lineup can shake it up a little bit against Houston. But it's been concerning only because the big identity for this Dodgers team is slugging the baseball with power.

And we just haven't seen a lot of that over the last two weeks. You know, it's funny. When I was first putting this rundown together, I had a really stupid line in here. The black eyed peas want to know, where is the slug? And then I took it out because that's really stupid. But Katie, you teed me up. So, yeah, yeah, 100%. I'll just, I could leave.

But anyways, yeah. No, it took some time to see a little bit of life, a little bit of something from this offense. And, you know, you mentioned the sickness in there, Katie. And that's something I've been talking about a little bit more over the weekend as well, people complaining about, people worried, very much worried about this club and its lack of offense at the moment, the lack of stringing hitters together. keeping the line moving. I don't think people are appreciating enough that illness and how it's

affected the team. And whether it's strength or being able to do your work, you got it at some point from the boys, like kind of how close are we to getting past this and getting everybody back on track and feeling close as close to healthy as you can. Yeah, I mean, especially when you're traveling, it's just so easy to get the sickness. But Matt's Monty seems to turn to corner. Freeman's feeling a little bit better. Alex Freeland feeling better. So I would hope that this like this really started in Denver. So it's been about two weeks now.

That is like the longest clubhouse sickness I can remember in a while. But I would hope that they're on the other end of it. It's not an excuse, right? At the end of the day, these guys are pros and none of them in the clubhouse are going to say, hey, we're sick. So we're not producing and it's okay. I think you're a part of the reason why you're seeing a little bit more chase, a little less of a consistent approach is because as a team, guys are pressing to try

to find a way to get on base. It was really important for the Dodgers to score first on Sunday against old friend Dustin May. When a team is slumping collectively and you go out and the other team scores first, you already feel like you're playing behind. You start to compress a little bit. There's a bat's get a lot more tight. So it was a good sign for me for the Dodgers to kind of see them go out and get to Dustin

May early. Even it was just a couple runs. Hang a crooked number on him there and keep tacking away. That's a good sign. Guys are feeling better. Trust the process. Team slump all the time. It has not been in front.

But hopefully this week we'll start to see more of the team that we've come to expect. On May the fourth be with you, every cliche we can possibly think of when it comes to baseball. Katie was mentioning the lack of slug. Clint had a horrible joke about where is the slug? Of course, the Dodgers lineup, you guys, remaining cold. Just 11 run scored over the last five games. LA has gone six straight games without a home run. The team's longest drought since July.

of 2014. That was eight games back 12 years ago. The Dodgers matched a league high 45 home runs in the first 28 games of this year. But Clint, there are some signs that the anemia might be over. And let's start with Freddie Freeman. This is a guy that is making hard contact. He's going the opposite way a little bit. He's using the entire field a little bit. And once you start making loud outs if you're Freddie Freeman, things are good things are to come, I would imagine. It's like

it looks like he's so close to getting back to where he needs to be. And it feels like we've said that a number of times when we're talking about a Fredward here, but I feel confident. When you see him lace an RBI single up the middle and you see him finding left field, that makes me feel confident enough to make him our Fandul daily dinger. So we're going to go ahead and get into this. How about that? Segway for you.

Appreciate Fandual being a sponsor here on the show. Listen, if we're talking about Freddie, again, finding some grass, finding the ability to drive in a run. That's what's been a massive hole for this team over this stretch of 10 days coming up on two weeks of anemia. You can't have Shohei and Freddie and, well, no Mookie in the lineup, but you can't have all those guys along with Kyle Tucker, along with Teoska Hernandez, not hitting. So show me a little bit of life. Freddie Freeman, we got the two out, RBI single in the fifth inning. And that one to me, again, it felt different. That is usually when you see Freddie go up the middle and start to use left field again,

granted it was not a line drive. He said after the game, hopefully tomorrow, that ends up being a line drive. But that's usually a precursor to him breaking out. And that's why I decided I took it all upon myself to make Freddie Freeman our Daily Dinger pick for this series in Houston. It doesn't have a lot of luck in Houston his career, small sample size, like two, 200 or 208 hit or something like that. But we are right there. We are on the doorstep of a Freddie breakout.

And it's going to go a long way for your boys in blue. Yeah, I think so too. I mean, and as you mentioned, he said, listen, hopefully tomorrow it's a line drive, that ball that he flared down the left field line. That's fine, pitch up the middle. He drove in a run, as you mentioned, that two-out RBI. I love when guys get, it's the killer for the opposition

when they give up a run with, you know, either two strikes or two-outs, but it's so great for the offense when they're able to be able to do that. That's why, as you mentioned, he is our daily dinger pick for this series in Houston. Guys, head over to fendual.com slash podcast to get started. That's fanduel.com slash podcast to opt in for daily dingers and make your free pick on who is hitting a homer play ball and swing for the fences on Fan duel, an official partner of Major League Baseball.

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Very excited to see you at the show. Kiss all the time, disco occasionally available now. All right, guys, let's continue the conversation about the series over the course of the weekend. We have not talked pitching. And Katie, I'm interested in your thoughts about this because Justin Robleski, once again, a really nice outing. I know Clint loves him. I don't know who he loves more Robo or Kyle Hurd, but whatever. He pitched six scoreless innings.

I'm talking about Rebleski. So he got the six scoreless Tanner. Scott picks up his second save of the season. But what are you liking from Justin Rebliskey's outings in terms of what you've seen so far? And moreover, what does that mean when Blake Snell comes back? I think what everyone is liking is the 5-0 record and the sub 1-E-R-rate as a starter. He's like, with respect, with respect, there's number six. And putting up numbers like that, they'll take it.

What's interesting is that he's doing it with virtually zero swing and miss. I mean, he has the lowest wifery in baseball. He has one of the lowest strikeout rates in baseball. And the reason that he's able to find these kinds of numbers in a game that is consistently prioritizing swing and miss is because he is just relentlessly pounding the zone. He is not afraid to go after guys. He's not afraid to hammer the first pitch strikes or he's not going to nibble. He's going to go right after you. And because he's in the zone so much, guys are going to swing because they know strikes are coming.

But he's been able to vary the fastball in the slider mix to keep them off balance, induce a good amount of soft contact, not a lot against the Cardinals, but enough for him to stay out of trouble. And it's working. You can make the argument, well, I don't know if this is sustainable. And that's fair. The modern game will tell you that it's not. I don't think Robleski cares, to be honest.

I think he is very confident in who he is as a pitcher. And that's why he's able to continue being so aggressive in the zone and going after hitters. There are certain things that can't be measured that aren't tangible in the box score on metrics. And how Roblesky has found his confidence and his commitment to sticking to his game, how it's allowed him to put on numbers. Now, Dave Roberts said, is he going to have a sub one ERA all season long? Probably not. Some are going to come.

But as long as Roblesky does not kind of tamper his own confidence in how he's attacking guys, he doesn't try to nibble and go for the strikeout. He's going to be just fine. It brings up a bigger question. What do the Dodgers do in the starting rotation with Blake Snell and they're in a return? He just notched his third rehab assignment on Sunday with OKC. I believe he'll have one more and then the Dodger will make a decision between activating him or a fifth rehab assignment. My money's on activation.

Who's it going to be? It's not going to be Roki. And I'm prepared for the comment section to go crazy. I'm not reading it. We'll get there. It's not going to be Roki unless Roki really falls apart. But it's kind of, in my opinion, between Sheehan and Rubleski. And that sounds crazy to say given what Robleski has done for this rotation.

So what do you guys think? What's your thoughts about that? I mean, do we have a seven-man rotation when Blake Snell comes back? I mean, Sheen's done everything that he could do in the opportunities. You just went very eloquently and discussed what Reblisky's been able to do every time he gets the ball. I mean, is this a situation where it's just young man out? I mean, it's got to be between those two because Clint, as you and I were talking about earlier before Katie joined, Dave Roberts has made it very clear that Sasaki is staying in the rotation.

Yeah, I mean, the organization has made it clear for months now that Roki Sasaki is going to either be good or be bad at the big league level. And they have the ability to kind of let him figure that one out. Roblesky has done everything he can to stay in this rotation to plant his feet and be like, no, I belong here. This is my spot. You could pry it from my cold dead hands. And I love the fact that he, he's already been. a role player in his career, his young major league career, and he's being a role player again right here. He's not where he doesn't have the the bravado to need to go out there and try to

strike dudes out. I'm not saying he's not trying to strike dudes out actively, but he cares more about giving this team length and innings. And that helps a whole bunch when you're talking about still continuing to have somebody like a Roki, Roki Sasaki in that starting rotation, who keeps getting better. We'll talk more Roki in a second. Keeps getting better. But still, is a bit, a good bit of a wild card. And then you have Blake's now coming back from an injury. You want to take it slow with him. So if you're looking between Rebleski and Sheehan,

it's got to be Emmett Sheehan and whether or not they decide to put him in the bullpen, which I think is a bad idea right now because you need to keep another starter built up. Sadly, my boy's got options. That's the thing. That's what I was worried about. He's got an ERA over five. There's enough meat on the bone there to say, let's keep you working. Let's find consistency with that fastball velocity at the AAA level.

There's enough there where it's going to be M at Sheehan. Yeah, and let's keep you stretched out. Let's keep you on a normal starter type of schedule so we can keep your pitch count up where it needs to be. Because inevitably, there's going to be another opportunity for Sheen to come back up and either spot start or get back another rotation if there's another injury or if somebody else doesn't have, you know, good production over the course of a few starts. So you're likely right with the ERA there at 5.23 and 31 innings pitch so far. Katie, what have you noticed about Sheehan in particular?

And is he your odd man out? I think the next start is going to be pivotal for Emmett. And we've talked all season long about his velo. On Friday against the Cardinals, he took a step back, in my opinion, in sustaining that. And he'd made some progress in the starts prior where he comes out, city 94, 95, right around his average in the first inning, every start. And then it drops. It continues to 94, 93, 92. And then it'll come back up his start prior to the Cardinal start. He did a nice job of sustaining the velo. It dropped a little bit, but he finished at 94.

And you thought he was taking a step in the right direction. On Friday, I thought we kind of saw some regression there. At one point in the fourth inning, he threw a fastball that topped out at 89.7. And the velo is something we've talked to Emmett about all season long. He doesn't think he's hurt. The Dodgers don't think he's hurt. I'm inclined to believe that because it's not like he's coming out and he's got a dead arm and there's no life on the fastball. Again, in the first inning, it's sitting right around 94, 95. It tapers off. I think that's something to do with the mechanics and his delivery where he's falling off to the first base side. And maybe that's happening as he progresses through his outing. He's getting a little bit more fatigued. So the mechanics kind

of fall to the side and you're seeing the drop in below as a byproduct of that. Whatever the reason is they need to figure it out. And both she and and the Dodgers have worked relentlessly. dating back to spring training to try to figure out how to sustain this more. If he can't do that, then I can see him being the odd man out, not as a reflection of talent or skill, but simply because for Emmett Sheehan to be at its best, he has to have higher Velo. There are some pitches that he could have gotten away with on Friday against St. Louis if they were thrown a little bit harder. There's a big difference between 93 and 95 coming at you. So that would be my rationale if I'm the Dodgers and Robleski continues to post like he has been.

If she and Zbelo continues to kind of taper down and drop, why not give him a break to go fix the mechanics in the minors, knowing that he's still going to play a pivotal partner season at some point later. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, that's such a good point that you bring up with velocity. And again, again, I think he really is going to want, they're going to want to keep him stretched out as a starter. I don't think putting him into the bullpen is going to, that's two totally different skill sets. And I think long term they see him as starter. One thing that we always say, you guys, is we always have to see improvement each time out. And I think we've seen that from Roki Sasaki.

We've also discussed, and Katie said it, that he's going to be the most scrutinized pitcher in all of baseball, not just on the Los Angeles Dodgers roster. but this arguably, Clint, was his best outing that he has had so far statistically of the season. Six innings, three earned runs. It was a quality star for him. He did give up the five hits at the two walks, but he did have four punchouts. So I guess he's taking steps forward. And that's all you can ask for.

And again, you just said it that the organization says that he is in their starting rotation. What did you like in particular from Sasaki's most recent outing? I mean, you like the fact that at least he's limiting the damage to one inning. if we have this kind of, we move the goalposts for, for him, nobody else. And even Diane had said in the chat a couple,

a couple of minutes ago, it's like, I hate the fact that no matter what Roke does, he gets to stay over two proven pitchers. And I mean, the talent is there to where you try to force, you can force the issue. And let's,

let's be, you know, painfully clear here that Roki Sasaki is not the reason the Dodgers have been losing baseball games. It's been the offense of late. But I like the fact that, you know, a start ago, we were talking about the difference in that split finger, and I'm not going to bring the baseball out for this one.

We're not doing pitching demos today. But him mixing in the forkball and the split finger in this start, getting more variation on the velocity. We're not going to see that upper end velocity like we were told we would see more regularly, the 99 to 101, even 102. He hasn't been there. He's been sitting still in the high 90s, mid to high 90s, probably more of a 97 on the fastball.

Well, you need to find more variation. You need to find a little bit more just something to keep hitters off balance. He's done it a little bit with that slider that he's getting more comfortable with. But I think he's always going to feel a lot more comfortable with some variation of a forkball and splitter because that's, this is where he's comfortable. So you're seeing baby steps. I also really like Dave said over the weekend and Katie, I'd like to get more from you on this. but Dave said that he is approaching the pitching coaches.

He's coming to Mark Pryor and company, Connor McGittes and being like, hey, let's figure this out a little bit more than let's say he would have in spring training or even last year where Alana, we talked a lot about the fact. Yeah. It seemed like there was a little bit of, you know, headbutting between the two sides. Now Roki seems open to some tutelage from the guys who are pretty good at it. Katie, what's your thought there? First of all, great word.

But I agree. I agree. And it's a two-way street, right? Like the Dodgers can be all in on trying to have conversations with Roki, shoot some ideas by him. But Roki has to say, I want to reciprocate. And I think we're seeing more trust, more buy-in from Roki. I mean, it goes back to the new splitter grip and him approaching Mark Pryor and

saying, I want to try this. And they're like, hell yeah, let's get on board. And what's interesting about the new splitter is that he can differentiate between that and the more traditional force. And we saw that for the first time against St. Louis on Saturday. So Rokey being able to share his ideas and being receptive to feedback is equally as important. And I don't want to come across and say, oh, he wasn't, he wasn't listening at all. I don't think that's fair, that's fair at all to say.

But I do think there's a concerted effort from Roki to buy in and the Dodgers deserve credit for making him feel that way. I thought Mark Pryor made a good point in a conversation I had with him the other day at Dodger Stadium, where Rokey spent the majority of his first season with Los Angeles on the IL. as we know, which means that guys with the pitching program lost a lot of opportunity to work with him on the day-to-day basis because he was hurt. And when you're not doing the grind with your team, I know he was there, but he's not throwing bullpens every five days. He's not taking the mound every five days either. You miss the opportunity to really converse and get to know the organization and vice versa. So it felt like a little bit more delayed because that big injury happened in his first

year. I think now that they're working together on a consistent basis, there's more buy-in, there's more understanding on the communication levels of both sides. The language barrier is a thing. I know the Dodgers have done a great job of making, making it less of a thing than usual, but it is something that Japanese players have to adjust to. We've seen it in Houston with the mind. He's having a hard time doing that.

So baby steps forward for Roki, and I know it is exhausting as a fan to say, like, we're back to back world search champions. We only play the best 26. Why are we giving continued chances to someone who might not fit that definition? It's because his potential is so high, And it's weird to ask Dodgers fans to allow a pitcher the grace to develop in the major leagues because Dodgers fans have been conditioned that the major leagues are for winning the World Series.

But in this long-term picture for Sasaki is to keep him in the rotation because that's what's going to benefit the club and him in the long-term future. And that's what they're going to stay with. And let's remember that when we start a new job anywhere, let's say we're working at Target or we're entering a new broadcast group or we're starting a new podcast. Yes, it takes a hot second to get to know your coworkers, right? It takes a minute to learn the flow of each other and the cadence and what works for one another to work in tandem. I think that's happening here, and I think they're definitely headed toward the right direction

of getting to know one another a lot better on the success of this team as the only goal, but learning how it works for each individual part of the huge puzzle. That is the Los Angeles Dodgers. All right, much more to come. We want to get to some DT headlines after this, but a word from our friends first at foul territory. You know, we don't always have to do things because that's how it's always been.

Look, people consider me old school, and I thought I was, but then we had the pitch clock and the ABS and ban on shifts and all these things that we've had for a long time in baseball. And you know what, much like Mint Mobile and the other mobile carriers, I'm here for the new school

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available now. Hey, how about that? A new segment here. I did that all by myself. Aren't you guys proud? It looks like there's, hang on, it looks like there's makeup wipes on the one of the desks in the press box. There's something on one of those desks that I noticed. And that was the row ahead of where I used to sit, by the way. It makes me sad. Listen, you got great weather out there in Boston, all right? Listen, I don't. But when you go back to your DT headlines front end, check out the, check out the, the wipes on the. Listen, I didn't take a good picture the last time I was in there.

That's just what we had. We're dealing with it. Only if you had somebody that was at the park every day that could send you some new photos. No, I don't want to get, you know, media guys in there. I don't want to see them. Nobody likes them. They're nice people. We enjoy them.

Only, only if you had somebody that was. literally at the park every day that could go take a picture for you that is sitting next to you. Anyway, carry on, please. Anyways, first, if we're talking about people we like and things we like, we got to thank the people who have already joined the YouTube members here. We have reached and surpassed that 25 member mark that we said we would unlock happy hour streams. We just need to figure out what we're drinking, when we're drinking it and hanging out

with people. But if you want to also join that party, whenever it may be $3.99 a month. Gets you, you know, supports the show. You're on YouTube members. You also get custom emojis. You can get shoutouts. We've got to do better about that. Discounted merchandise as well in the DT store.

Do check out the DT store while you're here as well. Scan that QR code or go to Dodger's Territory Shop.com. But very big thank you to the people who have supported the show through the YouTube members. What do you got there is? No, I love it. Thanks, you guys. By the way, tomorrow is Cinco de Miles, so Cinco to Drinko. Clint and I,

We'll be doing post game tomorrow. Katie will be, what are you doing? You're not in Houston. So do you have to write? Yes. I'm actually really excited about a little teaser story that we have coming out. Fabian and I are teaming up on a player that has been a little bit of a trending topic on social media. So I'm excited.

Oh, I know who it is. But I'm not going to love it. Everybody's favorite. By the way, great work. I don't think we talked much about it, but great work with the Miguel Rojas stuff from last week. thought that was really, really awesome. My opinion, listen, Miggie said he's going to retire. If they win, stick with that.

I think it's better for him. But anyways, the point of this segment is to catch up on all of the little things kind of headlines-wise. We did already talk Blake's Nell, but for the people who maybe are joining us late or to have it all in one tight package here of all the health and injury updates, again, made his third minor league rehab start. It was solid, gave up two-run Homer, the first fastball topped out at 97.

Katie, it's pretty much two starts and he's back. I think one more probably this weekend, again with OKC, that'll put him right at the five-inning 75 pitches mark. And that's all you need to be. I have a hard time. Blake Snell saying, you know what, I need one more rehab. I have a hard time thinking that that's going to be the case. So if we're projecting and speculating, not reporting, but predicting, I'm looking at that Anaheim series in anaheim for a potential Blake Snell return, assuming he crosses off all the boxes and makes

his next start this weekend. And Katie, there was a Brewster Gratterol sighting. How about that? Bazooka is back. Is he close? What is he doing? Get us caught up. Where did that come from, by the way?

I got to be better at my job, guys, because I saw that and I was like, should I asked about it. So a nice little humble reminder that there's always more things we could be doing. Bruce Rarader is going to take some time. There is no reason to rush him back right now as much as he might want to because he's missed so much time. I don't believe he's pitched in a real competitive game since 2024 postseason. So because he's missed so much time, it's going to be a slow buildup, maybe along the same timeline, a little bit slower than Brock Stewart.

We'll get to him. But expect him to go out there and just inch back in smaller doses. You're talking about one inning rehab stint a couple of days down next inning. And then for guys like Bruce are very similar to Brough. Brock, you want to work on the updowns and the back-to-back and check off every single box before you're activated. So we're still a few weeks away from seeing Gratterol back in action with the Dodgers, but obviously a great first step that he started his rehab assignment.

One of the guys you mentioned, beef, as we call him here, Brock Stewart. I think he had his back-to-backs. Everything seems to be kind of progressing in the right manner. Is this guy somebody that we could see potentially when the Dodgers returned to Dodger Stadium this weekend. He's certainly close. And we've talked about the importance of having more experience and more options from the right side. Though Kyle Hurt, your guy, Clint, has done a nice job. And we saw him get more of a leverage opportunity against the Marlin series. I don't think we talked about it, but him coming down or coming up in a down to high leverage situation to hold that deficit, that was a test.

That was a test for Kyle and he passed it. So there are some options there. But getting Brock Stewart back to pair with Blake Trinon, that will be helpful from the right hand side. Bessie, Tanner Scott have looked much better on the left as well. But, you know, as the Dodgers patchworked their bullpen, closer by committee, with Edwin Diaz out, getting more options with more experience, especially on the right side, will be important. So counting out of the days for Brock Stewart's return. That's another reason that if Brock Stewart is close to coming back, that's another reason

Cheyenne would go to AAA because there's just not any room. I mean, we have too many guys for the spots that are happening right now. Okay, so we talked about the pictures a little bit. Everybody wants to know where is Mookie Betts in terms of his. is an oblique issue in terms of the rehab. Those are tricky. Obliques, hamstrings are tricky. Where is Marcus Lynn Betts? Katie? Everyone's favorite non-answer. It's fluid. And every chance, that's so helpful. I get it. I get it. But with obliques, as we've talked about, since the injury, it's so finicky and it can change. Really, it's so hard to predict because

it's all about feel and it's such a tender area. So Mookie talked to us before we left on the road trip and he said he's feeling a lot better. We saw him. running full sprints on the field for the first time last homestand. He's working back to to taking more consistent reps. I still think we're going to see him right at the six week mark. But again, that can change. He's just past the four week threshold. He still feels like he's feeling better and more ahead of this than when he experienced the same

issue a couple seasons ago. So he will probably need a little bit of a rehab assignment just because he's missed so many games. But the boxes for him to check are going to be going out and hitting without soreness. He had to shut it down a couple weeks ago because he was. he went out and felt some soreness after swinging the bat. And with an old week, because you can tweak those again real quick, they shut it down. So it's all about caution and not pushing too much too hard.

I would expect we have another couple weeks to go before we see Mookie back at shortstop. Seriously going to be much needed for the top of the lineup, especially as they go through their little offensive struggles here. Another couple guys. I know fans are really excited to eventually see back Tommy Edmund, Kike Hernandez, the same one, the pokey came on. Not a sponsor. Tommy Edmund, he was somebody, I think a lot of people were anticipating seeing him moving more,

doing more baseball activities at this point. But it seems to be really slow coming back from that ankle, which it always seems to be slow with him and that ankle. Where are we at with Tommy Edmund and is end of May still kind of the target for the Dodgers? So when they first announced that Tommy Edmund was going under ankle surgery and the hopes would be back for spring training. This is no disrespect to Tommy Edmund, who I've covered a long time dating back to St. Louis.

I said that as a Dodgers under, they're underselling it. It's going to be a while because Tommy has always been someone who progresses a little bit on the more slow side with injury. And that just depends on the player. That's not him ducking anything. It's just him ensuring that his body is recovering well. So this is actually right on QM where I thought Tommy

I would be at this point of the year. And the reason is because the Dodgers don't need to push him because they don't need him to come back just to play second base. They need him to come back to play second base and center field. And we saw last year he wasn't able to do the center fields part of that. And that really put a hamper on what he could do throughout his field. But when the Dodgers traded for Tommy Edmund, trust me, it was for his versatility because he was playing all over that diamond up until he was hurt in St. Louis.

And that's really what makes him a different type of player. The Dodgers love that super utility option. They don't have that in Tommy Edmund when he has that balky ankle. So giving him enough time, not ripping up too. quickly. They have a pretty good lot of middle infield options right now, even with mooky bets out for them to take their time with Tommy. Also with that balky ankle, you can see the offensive production start to dip. He told me at spring training. He felt last year he was at his best in April. I believe he slugged eight homers last April. And then the turn with that ankle

throughout the rest of the year. And you saw the offensive numbers drop dramatically accordingly. So with Tommy Edmund, I still think we're looking more of an early June than mid-May, end of May. But the point is that when he comes back, he comes back fully healthy and ready to produce in both positions. There's no use having him with the Major League roster if he's going to be limited to the middle end field. And you mentioned the defensive versatility. We saw some of the limitations with that ankle last year up to and including, you know, through the World Series where it was kind of back against the wall before Dave put him back out in center field. And hey, ho-hum, the Dodgers win game six and seven. And they go on and win that World Series.

Also the final bit, thank you, Riz. the final bit on Kiki, it feels like rehab is coming in the next week and change potentially? I'd say sooner than that. I wouldn't be surprised if he starts a rehab tomorrow or as early as tomorrow. I believe he, when Kiki said it, I'll believe it. He said he wants to come back as soon as he's clear to come off the 60-day I.L. That would be May 24th, a Sunday, though the Dodgers are in Milwaukee. So I think it would make more sense to look at that kind of expected date as May 25th,

should he begin a rehab assignment this week, which I believe he will do so. Again, perhaps as early as tomorrow. And for Kike, safe thing, they can afford to take their time with him. He might not love that. But if they're starting to rehab this week right now, that gives him three weeks to get built back up before his desired date of 24, 25. So that's, in my opinion, given how much time he's missed coming back from surgery, the perfect amount of rehab time because you can go out, play, you know, five innings,

take a day off, play seven, take a day off. and really work yourself back up so you're not taxing yourself early. But I think out of all of the options that we see, Mookie Betts, Kike Hernandez coming back around the same time, Tommy Edmund a little bit later. Yeah, Kiki Hernandez must be bored out of his mind, ready to come back, certainly, and play for the Los Angeles Dodgers as they try to three-peat.

All right, great stuff, Katie. We appreciate all the updates. Let's get to Leslix. All right, guys, let's welcome in Sprout to the Gidreys Guardian family. This is a pup that was in the Moreno Valley shelter for three months, was on the euthanasia list, almost running out of time. A foster stepped up, so we are backing him. We are his backing rescue.

He is in a foster home in Huntington Beach, and he is going to be headed to the vet on Wednesday. So we need some donations, if you don't mind, for his vet care, just an overall wellness visit. We need to have a skin checked, a blood panel completely done just to make sure he's healthy, fecal sample, all the things. Go to gidreysgarden.org. A dollar makes a huge difference.

Please donate in Sprout's name, as we try to get him healthy and adopted into his forever home. All right, guys, we're almost done here on Dodgers territory on this Monday. Clint and I will be back tomorrow night for post. And then all three of us will be back on Thursday, of course. A big series. It's always a big series, Katie. When you're going up against the Houston Astros for reasons I don't need to get into,

it's the first of a three game set at Dyken Park. I can't talk. Yoshinobu Yamamoto going up against lefty Stephen O'Kert. Yamamoto coming off of his first non-quality start of the season. Katie, what do you need to see from him? Just to bounce back outing. And I think with Yamamoto, I don't think he would say that his command has been perfect all season long. You're looking at the numbers, though, like a 287 ERA.

I think most people will take that. But I don't think we've seen maybe the cleanest, most dazzling version of Yamamoto yet. But new month, new pitcher, I guess. So we'll see that way. What I'm more interested in, though, is can this offense finally wake up in that lunchbox of a ballpark. Bright-headed hitters, it is your time to shine in those Crawford boxes. In Houston, we have some bigger problems, guys.

Clint, Yamamoto's facing the Astros for the first time in his career. I looked at the Major League Baseball Network statistics for the game tonight. Some worrying trends in Yamamoto's underlying numbers from 2025 to 2026. Groundball percentage is down. two strike chase percentages down what do you think what do you need to see i i don't care about the pitching side of things i care about the dodgers capitalizing on this horrible houston astros just pitching staff in general there you go era in baseball their starters are bad stretched in they got it you know we said the the opener going today the bullpen is is god awful uh i'm not

worried even slightly about yamamoto i'm never worried about Yamamoto coming off of his worst start of the year was still pretty dang good. I think he will be fine again, starting rotation. It's loaded with aces. As Katie said last week, Dodger starting rotation is not the problem. They need to get some bats going. And this needs to be a feel good, get right, all of the things series in Houston and, you know, shove it up their asses a little bit. All right. We've been saying this is a get right series for quite some time now. Feel like we've been saying this has been a get-right series for the Forrestraight series. So here we go.

All right, guys. Thank you so much for being with us. We will be back again post-game tomorrow night. Don't forget to smash that subscribe button on YouTube. Please rate and review the pod on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your pods. Don't forget to check out Dodgersterritory shop.com for cool stuff. We will see you tomorrow night. Go, Dodgers.

Bye. Bye. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced game. Games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator of available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the signs of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at a podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

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