Exactly one week to the day after the Dodgers were eliminated from playoff contention by the New York Mets, Dodgers utility infielder (and primary third baseman) Justin Turner underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee. The October 22, 2015 procedure, which was performed by Dodgers head team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache, was intended to “cleanup loose bodies” in Turner’s knee. But during the estimated 30-minute procedure, Dr. ElAttrache discovered that the 31-year-old Long Beach native also required microfracture surgery, a procedure similar to the one that former Dodger Matt Kemp needed to repair his left ankle the year before.

“They drill holes in it and let the blood come out and refill the area that the cartilage broke out of,” explained Turner of the procedure.

Although the extremely popular redhead doesn’t know exactly when the injury occurred, he believes that it was during the playoffs themselves.

“My MRI before the playoffs was fine and my MRI after the playoffs showed a bunch of different stuff,” said Turner.

But did Turner’s microfracture actually occur during the NLDS or could it possibly have happened back on June 8 when he fouled a ball off of his left knee, after which he took nearly five minutes to “walk it off” before resuming his at-bat? Even though Turner completed the at-bat with a fly out to center and played defense the following half-inning, he came out of the game at the end of that inning after making a diving stop during which he landed hard on that same knee.

Although Turner avoided the disabled list after fouling a ball off his left knee on June 8, it continued to bother him for the rest of the regular season. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Although Turner managed to avoid the disabled list, then Dodgers manager Don Mattingly kept him out of the lineup for the next three days and began giving him more days off for the remainder of the season. But even though Turner was limited to appearing in 126 games – a career-high – he still manage to post a .294 batting average, a .370 on-base percentage, a .491 slugging percentage for an impressive .861 OPS – good enough to earn a $2.6 million raise over the $2.5 million that he made in 2015 in a deal signed just this past Friday thus avoiding arbitration.

Ironically, the day before Turner’s knee surgery, catcher Yasmani Grandal underwent arthroscopic surgery to repair his left acromioclavicular (AC) joint – yet another Matt Kemp-ish injury. And then three weeks later super-sub Kiké Hernandez underwent arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies in his right shoulder. Needless to say, Dr. ElAttrache was kept pretty busy this off-season.

But while it was initially thought that Turner, Grandal and Hernandez would be fully recovered by spring training and ready to go on Opening Day on April 4, it now appears that this might not be the case. During a January 14 interview with Dodgers beat writer Ken Gurnick, new Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was a little less optimistic that Turner will be ready by Opening Day than he is about Grandal and Hernandez.

“It’s a little more touchy with microfracture surgery,” Roberts said of Turner. “Kiké and Yasmani are tracking to be healthy at the beginning of camp. With Justin, we’re going to take our time with him. You can always get at-bats in the spring. We’ve told him there’s no rush, just be healthy, whatever that day is.”

While this may come as bad news for Justin Turner fans – and there are many – those who are even remotely familiar with him know that there isn’t a tougher, grittier player on the team, and there is no way that any of them would bet against the 5′ 11″ / 205-pound utility infielder being the Dodgers Opening Day third baseman. However, by all indications and according to the guy who will be filling out that Opening Day lineup card, it appears that Turner will have to convince his new manager – along with Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and general manager Farhan Zaidi – that is is 100 percent ready to go after an extremely scrutinizing spring training.

Stay tuned…