Muncy's X-rays came back clean — which is about the only clean thing that happened in Milwaukee last night. This is Dodgers Daily. Five to one, Graterol might be going under the knife, and we're supposed to celebrate negative X-rays? Today we're on the real damage from Game 1 in Milwaukee, what the Graterol surgery talk means for the bullpen, and a Triple-A arm who may have forced the Dodgers' hand. Let's get into it. This one's from Yahoo Sports:
MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers walked into American Family Field on Friday night and got punched in the mouth early. By the end of a 5-1 loss to the Brewers, though, the final score almost felt secondary to the sight of Max Muncy walking off the field holding his right wrist.
Dodgers lose 5-1 in Milwaukee, and somehow the bigger headline isn't the scoreboard — it's Muncy walking off holding his right wrist after taking a pitch. X-rays were negative, Roberts says it's swelling, and he's probably down a couple days. Muncy said it caught half the wrist pad and half the actual wrist, so, lucky maybe — or just the calm before worse news next week. I flagged Wrobleski against Henderson's 2.94 xERA yesterday and — shocker — 5-1. But the Muncy thing scared me more than the loss. When you hear, 'X-rays never come back positive immediately,' that's because nobody feels great yet. That's not nothing. Fair. Negative X-rays are the one non-terrible thing in a Friday that was otherwise a mess. And when Graterol's situation is drifting toward surgery and you just dropped Game 1 in Milwaukee, you take the small win and move on. Sure, but 'probably down a couple days' with swelling in the wrist and a long road stretch coming up? That's not a clean bill of health. That's a hold your breath and check back Monday situation. And with everything else wobbling right now, I don't love the odds. This one's from El-Balad:
brusdar graterol’s back flared up during a minor-league rehab outing on May 12, and the Dodgers are now expecting him to miss a considerable amount of time. Surgery is being considered, a sharp turn for a 27-year-old reliever who had already missed the entire 2025 season.
Graterol flared up on May 12 during a minor-league rehab outing, and surgery is now on the table. That's a 27-year-old who's thrown fewer than eight innings for this team since the start of 2024. So the 'we have depth' answer just picked up a new and expensive line item. He already lost all of 2025. All of it. And now we're in May 2026 talking about whether he needs the knife again. This isn't a depth story anymore — it's a guy's career skidding downhill while the Dodgers keep dressing it up with optimistic updates. I'll push back a little — the 1.20 ERA in 68 appearances in 2023 is why they kept him on a one-year deal this winter. That's not dressing anything up; that's a real arm they're trying to get back. The problem is it keeps breaking before they can use it. Right, and meanwhile the gauntlet starting May 29 is getting closer, the Dodgers just dropped 5-1 in Milwaukee, and the bullpen is supposed to hold all of this together. Graterol was supposed to be part of that answer. He isn't part of that answer. From Darren Yamashita at Yahoo Sports:
The Los Angeles Dodgers continue searching for answers within a rotation hit hard by injuries, and River Ryan is quickly strengthening his case for a major league opportunity. The right-hander delivered another impressive performance for Triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday, striking out seven batters across five scoreless innings against the Reno Aces while allowing just two hits.
Update on the River Ryan ramp we flagged last edition — five scoreless innings Thursday, seven strikeouts, 62 pitches, fastball sitting at 98. Yahoo Sports is calling him a serious rotation option now, and honestly, it's getting harder to argue. Serious rotation option — and the Dodgers went and grabbed Lauer. Seven Ks in five innings on 62 pitches, and this guy is still in Oklahoma City while we're out here losing 5-1 to Milwaukee. He had Tommy John last year, Joey. Coming back from that at 27 on a strict pitch count isn't the same thing as being ready for a pennant-race rotation spot — though I'll give you this, Thursday made the case a lot harder to dismiss. He posted a 1.33 ERA in his four starts before the surgery. The guy can pitch. And with Graterol now maybe headed for a second straight lost season, the 'not yet' answer is starting to get expensive. Here's Rob Terranova at MLB:
L.A.'s top four prospects are all outfielders -- Josue De Paula, Zyhir Hope, Eduardo Quintero and Mike Sirota -- and when you add No. 7 Charles Davalan, that makes five outfielders the Dodgers have on MLB Pipeline's Top 100 Prospects list.
MLB Pipeline dropped a number today that's worth sitting with: five Dodgers outfield prospects in the Top 100. Twenty percent of the outfield spots on that list belong to one organization. That has literally never happened before in the rankings. De Paula, Hope, Quintero, Sirota, Davalan — five guys, and not one of them is helping us right now while Graterol's back is apparently one sneeze away from surgery. That's the tension, right there. The farm is historically loaded in the outfield, and the 2026 roster is leaking through the rotation and bullpen. Those are not the same pipeline. The Rockies had four outfield prospects in 2024. You know what they did with that? Nothing. Depth is a story until it isn't — River Ryan's sitting in Triple-A with a dominant outing on the books, and they're still penciling in Wrobleski while we lose 5-1 in Milwaukee. Got a Dodgers question, a story idea, or a correction for us? Send it our way at dodgersdailyfancast at lantern podcasts dot com. We’d love to hear what you’re tracking.
You’ll find links to every story we mentioned today in the show notes, so if something caught your ear, you can tap through and spend a little more time with it.
That’s Dodgers Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.