For the fourth time this season, the Los Angeles Dodgers will welcome a pitcher back from Tommy John surgery when right-hander Emmet Sheehan faces the visiting San Diego Padres on Wednesday night.
Sheehan, who has not pitched in a major league game since the end of the 2023 season, joins Shohei Ohtani, Dustin May and Tony Gonsolin as Dodgers right-handers who have made the comeback from major elbow surgery.
Even more Los Angeles arms have returned of late, as the staff begins to get out from under a crush of injuries, with Clayton Kershaw (knee, toe), Michael Kopech (forearm) and Kirby Yates (hamstring) all back now.
Sheehan was 4-1 with a 4.92 ERA in his rookie season of 2023 over 13 appearances, 11 of which were starts. He also gave up three runs over 3 2/3 innings of a playoff game against the Arizona Diamondbacks when he replaced Kershaw, who was knocked out of the game in the first inning.
Sheehan used the entire 2024 season for rehab and was inspired by the Dodgers’ run to a World Series championship.
“Obviously, it was really painful not to be able to contribute to that, but you also have that to look forward to, to come back to this special of a group,” Sheehan said. “It really helped a lot of us who were rehabbing out in Arizona.”
After an 8-6 victory Tuesday, the Dodgers are 4-1 against the Padres in a run of seven games between the teams in 11 days. Andy Pages hit two home runs for Los Angeles, and Will Smith had a go-ahead, two-run homer in a five-run sixth inning on a 12-pitch at-bat.
Patience already is running thin between the teams after Pages was hit by a pitch Monday and Ohtani was hit Tuesday, a half-inning after San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. was drilled.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was ejected for arguing after both benches were warned when Ohtani was hit.
San Diego is set to send right-hander Stephen Kolek (3-2, 3.50 ERA) to the mound Wednesday. He struggled Friday in his most recent outing, allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits in 4 1/3 innings while absorbing his first loss since May 16 as the Arizona Diamondbacks won 5-1.
Kolek had four relief appearances with a 4.91 ERA against the Dodgers in his rookie season of 2024.
The Padres received three hits and an RBI from Luis Arraez on Tuesday, while Trenton Brooks hit a two-run, pinch-hit home run in his second game with his hometown team after making his San Diego debut on Monday.
San Diego has never faced Sheehan.
“There’s no real secrets,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said on MLB Radio about facing the Dodgers. “There are guys that will come up in the series, potentially to pitch, that we have to do our due diligence. We know kind of what to expect and where they will go, and it’s a matter of how we compete and execute.”
San Diego shortstop Jose Iglesias was hit in the left hand Tuesday by a Matt Sauer pitch in the seventh inning and was replaced on defense by Tyler Wade in the bottom half of the inning. The hit-by-pitch came after the umpire warnings, but no action was taken.
–Field Level Media
