When the Dodgers traded second baseman Dee Gordon to the Miami Marlins after the 2014 season, they essentially traded away their best leadoff hitter since Rafael Furcal, who held that post from 2006 to 2011. Oh sure, they toyed around with Carl Crawford, Nick Punto, Skip Schumaker, Jerry Hairston Jr., Yasiel Puig, Joc Pederson, Kiké Hernandez and several others, but the cold hard truth is that they haven’t had a real dyed-in-the-wool leadoff hitter in quite some time.

When spring training 2016 began last month, new Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was often asked who he was planning to utilize as his leadoff hitter for the coming season. As politely as he could, Roberts repeatedly said that the role would depend on pitching match-ups. In other words, the extremely popular new skipper had no idea who his leadoff hitter was going to be.

But all of that changed on Wednesday when Roberts penciled soon-to-be 34-year-old outfielder Andre Ethier in the number one spot on his line-up card.

Why?

“He gets on base,” Roberts told reporters on Wednesday morning.

Indeed he does. In fact, heading into Friday’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Salt River Fields, Ethier had a spring training on-base percentage on .500 that included four walks, seven singles, one triple and one home run.

By all appearances Dave Roberts had finally found his leadoff hitter, arguably the most unlikely one of all. In fact, in his 10-year MLB career, Ethier has never led off a game – not once.

Sure enough and right on cue, Ethier promptly laced the first pitch of the game into right field for a leadoff single and came around to score in what would end up being be a four-run first inning for the Dodgers off of Dbacks right-hander Zack Godley.

Although Ethier grounded out to Dbacks Gold Glove first baseman Paul Goldschmidt in his second at-bat in the second inning, it was his third at-bat in the top of the fourth inning that caused quite a scare for Roberts, all of Ethier’s teammates and every Dodger fan on the planet.

Ethier left zero doubt that he was in excruciating pain after fouling a ball off of his right leg on Friday. (Video capture courtesy of MLB.com)

On a 2-0 count, Ethier fouled an 86-MPH Godley cut fastball off of his right leg just below the knee. Not only did Ethier go down, he stayed down for quite some time, eventually bringing out a trainer and Roberts. After several minutes Ethier finally stood back up and to the surprise of everyone resumed his at-bat, drawing a walk. But as he made his way to first base, it was very apparent that he was not okay and was immediately replaced with a pinch runner. A short while later he was taken by cart to the Dodgers clubhouse for X-rays.

“I’m hopeful there’s no fracture,” Roberts told reports immediately follow the game. He added that he is “thinking positive thoughts.”

Those positive thoughts apparently worked as late Friday evening word spread that the X-rays had come back negative and that the veteran outfield (and apparent new Dodgers leadoff hitter) is listed as “day to day” with a lower leg contusion.

Although this is great news, the phrase day to day is rather ambiguous. How often have we seen day to day turn into week to week and occasionally even month to month. And while this is certainly not to suggest that Ethier’s contusion is more serious than what we’re being told, you most certainly can expect Roberts to error on the side of caution when it comes to writing Ethier’s name at the top of his lineup card. Keep in mind that it was a June 8, 2015 foul ball off the left knee of Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner that led to problems for the remainder of the season for the popular redhead and eventual led to off-season microfracture surgery.

That being said, it certainly won’t hurt if Dodger fans do what Roberts did…

“Thinking positive thoughts.”