It was like March 7, 2008 all over again. On that day during a meaningless spring training game against the St. Louis Cardinals at historic Holman Stadium at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, Dodgers third baseman Nomar Garciapara suffered a microfracture on his left hand when he was hit by a pitch by Kyle McClellan. Nomar was replaced at third base by rookie third baseman Andy LaRoche. Moments later, LaRoche himself was injured on a freak throw by Dodgers catcher Danny Ardoin that deflected off St. Louis base runner D’Angelo Jiménez and struck LaRoche on his throwing hand causing a tear to the ulnar collateral ligament of his right thumb. Just like that the Dodgers lost two third baseman in a matter of minutes.

On Saturday night, Dodgers super-sub Justin Turner was making his first start of the new season at third base for the 2-2 Dodgers to give 36-year-old regular third baseman Juan Uribe a day off. It wasn’t that Uribe needed an extra day off with the Dodgers coming off of a regularly scheduled day off only two days prior, it’s just that Dodgers manager Don Mattingly wanted to keep his aging third baseman “rested” and get some of his bench players some at-bats.

In the bottom of the third inning after back to back singles by Diamondbacks center fielder A. J. Pollock and left fielder Ender Inciarte, Pollock attempted to steal third base off of Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw. Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis fired a perfect throw to third base that had Pollock out by a good six feet. Unfortunately for the Dodgers and even more so for Turner, the Dodgers third baseman was forced to wait for the feet-first sliding Pollock, whose spikes caught Turner on his exposed left index finger (which was outside of his glove, as most players do) knocking the ball loose and causing a laceration to Turners left index finger. To add insult to injury (literally), Turner was charged with an error and had to come out of the game. Fortunately, Turner’s finger was not broken and the injury is considered to be minor.

Because Turner had to actually wait for A.J. Pollock to arrive at third base, he was basically a sitting duck. Fortunately, his injury is not considered serious. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

For reasons that only he knows, Mattingly chose to cancel the elder Uribe’s day off instead of inserting 28-year-old utility infielder/outfielder Alex Guerrero, who appeared in 13 games at third base during spring training and swung an extremely hot bat (.306) as compared to Uribe’s ice cold bat (.216) – not to mention Uribe’s 3 for 13 (.231) to start the regular season. Uribe, who has a long history of hamstring issues, entered the game without any stretching whatsoever and wouldn’t you know, on the very first pitch to Paul Goldschmidt, the Dbacks slugger hit a grounder to Uribe, who made a great play but had to make an awkward twisting throw to get Goldschmidt on the RBI fielders choice. Within seconds, Uribe grabbed his left hamstring and tried shaking it out, but the damage was clearly already done. Uribe, who was due to bat fifth in the top of the inning, was himself lifted from the game and replaced by Guerrero, who finished out the game at third base in the eventual 6-0 loss to the Snakes.

Not much doubt about this one.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

As he often does, Mattingly blew off questions about Uribe’s status after the game and declined to say if a roster move might be pending.

“There’s no reason to get into that,” Mattingly said. “Juan will come in tomorrow. We’ll see where he’s at. It could be a thing that’s just a couple days. We’ll see about that tomorrow.”

While Mattingly’s comment might be the politically correct thing to say, the cold hard truth is that there is no way, absolutely no way that the Dodgers can risk the so-called ‘day-to-day’ thing with a 36-year-old third baseman who has a history of hamstring injuries. And while Guerrero or Darwin Barney will most likely take over at third base until Turner can return as Uribe’s replacement, the Dodgers absolutely have to get the wheels in motion for a long(er) term replacement for Uribe, who is most likely headed for the disabled list.

Ironically, almost prophetically, super sub Kikè Hernandez all but called this shot – not the injuries to Uribe or Turner but that he would be back with the big league club after having been sent down to Triple-A Oklahoma City to begin the season solely because he still had options.

“My goal is to make the big league, I’m not thinking about Triple-A, I’m not thinking about anything else,” said Hernandez during a March 23 interview. … “If they decide to send me to Triple-A I’m just going to do my thing so I’m in Triple-A for a week or two maybe and I’ll be back up on the team. I want to be in the big leagues, I want to help the team win. I really think I can help that.”

Kikè Hernandez, who tied Joc Pederson for the most home runs during spring training with six, is hands down the most likely candidate to be called up from Triple-A should Uribe land on the DL.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

As expected, the Dodgers have said nothing about the possibility of bringing Hernandez up. And though the sample size is extremely small, the extremely popular 23-year-old San Juan, Puerto Rico native is already hitting .364 (4 for 11) with one home run and three RBIs after two games with OKC.

Maybe Don Mattingly or Farhan Zaidi or Andrew Friedman won’t say it, but I will…

Welcome back Kikè.