When Dodgers left fielder Carl Crawford rolled his left ankle running down a ball in the corner on May 27, it look bad – real bad. The fact that the 32-year-old Houston, TX native was even able to get to the ball and make the throw back to the infield was in itself a miracle. After doing so Crawford immediately began hobbling around in tremendous pain and was limping severely when he exited the game. Everyone feared the worst when he had to be wheeled to and from the shower in a wheelchair.

“It doesn’t look good,” said Dodgers manager Don Mattingly after the game. “The video didn’t look good.”

What made Crawford’s injury even more painful to the team is that he was beginning to swing a hot bat and was showing flashes of the speed that earned him the AL stolen base title in 2003, 2004, 2006 and 2007 while with the Rays.

When Crawford rolled his ankle there was zero doubt that he was headed for the disabled list.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNetLA)

But as bad as it looked and undoubtedly as much as it hurt, Crawford is recovering from the injury much quicker that anyone expected – so much so that he took early batting practice on Monday afternoon and by all accounts could be ready to return to action much sooner than initially thought.

“It’s getting better, making progress day to day right now,” said Crawford after Monday’s batting practice. “Today is the best it’s felt but I’ve got a few obstacles to overcome, but I feel like I’m making progress.”

The mere fact that Crawford is taking batting practice only six days after rolling his left ankle is remarkable. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Crawford added that he has already started running on a treadmill, which is cause for optimism. When asked if he might be ready to come off the DL at the minimum of 15 days (on June 11), he was a little less optimistic.

“They say that’s the goal, you’ve got to shoot for it,” Crawford said. “I don’t know if I’m going to make that but it’s definitely a date I’m shooting for.”

Although Mattingly is equally impressed with how quickly his All-Star left fielder is healing, he too is reluctant to give a time frame for Crawford’s return.

“He looks good,” said the Dodgers skipper. “I think this is day six [since the injury]. The fact that he’s out here swinging, I think he’s doing a little bit of running, he’s getting to do quite a bit. I don’t think he’s perfect yet by any means but everything has been pretty positive so far.

“I don’t want to jump out there and make decisions for him because that’s a setback if he doesn’t make it,” Mattingly added. “But I think day six we feel a lot better about him having a chance at making it at 15 than we did on day two. Things are going good right now.”

Whether Crawford makes it back on June 11 or not remains to be seen, but there is every reason to believe that it will happen not much later than that.