It’s one of those things that happens often during baseball games around the world – a batter fouls a baseball off their foot, ankle, shin, knee or whatever and it just plain hurts.

That’s exactly what happened to Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner in the third inning of Monday night’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks. In Turner’s case it was his left knee and the impact left him in excruciating pain for a good five minutes. After trying to walk it off, the gutsy 30-year-old Long Beach native remained in the game and resumed his at-bat, flying out to center.

There is absolutely nothing that you can do after fouling a ball off your leg except wait for the pain to subside, as Justin Turner had to do in Monday night’s 9-3 win over the Dbacks.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

And if that wasn’t enough, in the top of the next inning Turner landed directly on the same knee while diving for a ball at third base that got past him for a single.

“It wasn’t too bad after awhile but out on defense, the dive, and I just banged it right back in the ground so that made it even worse. I’m not sure which one was worse for me,” Turner told reporters after the game. “As time goes on those things usually tighten up more and more. It was getting pretty uncomfortable and I didn’t want to not be able to get to a ball or have something happen and cost Mike [Bolsinger] some runs, so we decided to just come off the field and get the X-ray done and make sure nothing was wrong.”

Fortunately, X-rays came back negative and Turner is listed as day-to-day. He said that he has already iced his knee down and will do so again when he gets home.

“I iced it about three times already but usually whenever you take the ice off it almost feels worse than it did before you put the ice on,” Turner said. “I’m able to walk around fine but it’s just a little bit tight walking up stairs or down stairs. I have an ice machine to take home with me and I’ll keep icing the heck out of it tonight and in the morning and then come back and see if I feel good tomorrow.”