Shortly after the news broke that Dodgers All-Star shortstop Corey Seager would be out for the remainder of the 2018 season, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts addressed the media. During that scrum, the Dodgers skipper was asked who he planned to use in place of his star shortstop. His answer was both surprising and confusing.

“I think that the way I see it right now, have Chris [Taylor] play a lot of short and be out there every day, and have Kiké [Hernandez] out there in the outfield, center field, and sort of rotate Joc [Pederson] and Matt [Kemp] in center field and left field,” Roberts said. “Obviously, you got Verdugo here right now while Yasiel [Puig] is on the DL, and so we got some very good options still.

On Monday Roberts told reporters that Chris Taylor was going to be his every day shortstop in Seager’s absence. He may now want to rethink this. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA – Click on image to view video)

Why surprising and confusing, you ask? Because, quite frankly, Kiké is a better shortstop than Taylor, and Taylor a better center fielder that Kiké. In fact, it isn’t even close at either position.

Oh sure, you can argue that Taylor was originally a shortstop early in his career, but the things that made him a good shortstop – i.e. his speed and his ability to get a great read on batted balls – are exactly why he is a great outfielder, especially a center fielder.

As for Kiké, last week he made two exceptional – if not impossible – defensive plays while filling in for Seager on a scheduled day off that Chris Taylor probably would not have been able to make.

“I made two good plays,” Hernandez said. “The first one was kind of one of those … a sliding play, a routine sliding play, and the second one, don’t ask me how I made it ’cause I have no idea. I threw the ball, I didn’t even know where I threw it, and I just heard the crowd and I didn’t even want to look anywhere because I had no idea how I did that.”

Where he threw it was directly into the waiting glove of Dodgers first baseman Cody Bellinger to complete two absolutely stellar highlight reel plays.

And then on Wednesday night, Hernandez, who got the start at short while Taylor was given the night off, made a play that even Roberts couldn’t overlook and, in fact, later gave extremely high praise for making.

In the bottom of the eighth inning and nursing a precarious 2-0 lead over the current best team in baseball, the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, Dbacks left fielder David Peralta led off the inning with a double to right. Dbacks shortstop Nick Ahmed followed with a fly out to Dodgers right fielder Matt Kemp, allowing Peralta to take third. This brought up the always-dangerous Paul Goldschmidt representing the tying run with one out.

That’s the bad news.

The worse news is that Dodgers right-hander Josh Fields walked Goldie to bring the just-named National League Player of the Month A.J. Pollock to the plate with runners at the corners and still only one out. But on the very first pitch of the at-bat, Pollock, who was already 2-for-2 on the night with a double and a single, drilled a hard grounder that appeared to be headed into the left field gap that would have at least driven in Peralta and perhaps even the speedy Goldschmidt. Instead, Hernandez made yet another impossible back-handed grab of the ball and somehow managed to turn a 6-4-3 double play to end the threat and the inning.

How Hernandez was able to spear Pollock’a sharp grounder with his back to home plate is an absolute mystery … but he did and managed to turn an inning-ending double play to save at least one and possibly two runs from scoring. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

“That’s the play of the year up to this point,” said Roberts of Hernandez’s web gem. “I count on him a lot in a lot of capacities and that backhand play off the bat of Pollock was unbelievable. For him to bail Josh out to get two outs on one pitch. He’s a special player, he really is.”

But are these (now) three absolutely brilliant defensive plays by Hernandez at shortstop enough to convince Roberts to reconsider who his every day shortstop should be in Seager’s absence?

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.