Mookie Betts gets scratched with right wrist soreness the night before the Padres come to town. The timing writes itself. This is the Dodgers Daily Podcast — and today we're figuring out whether this is just maintenance or a full-blown injury pileup, right as San Diego rolls in. Barnes recalled, Mills optioned, and a leadoff hitter with a question mark. Let's get into it. Follow the show and the next briefing lands in your feed on its own. From George Bissell at NBC Sports:
Mookie Betts was scratched from the lineup for Wednesday’s series finale against the Athletics with right wrist soreness. Miguel Rojas takes over at shortstop with Max Muncy moving into the cleanup spot against his former club. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters they made the decision to scratch Betts out of an abundance of caution.
Mookie. Right wrist. Scratched. The one guy who sets the table, and it's soreness in the wrist he swings with — that's the note I did NOT want to see on my screen today. Per NBC Sports, it's a scratch from Wednesday's finale against the A's. Rojas slides to short, Muncy moves up to cleanup against his old club, and Roberts calls it an abundance of caution. And there's that phrase again. Roberts told Sports Illustrated they're 'erring on the side of caution' — same vocabulary he's used on Smith, on Teoscar, on Rushing. At some point I'd like a different word. It's bigger than one word, Kirk. You've got Smith, Muncy, Teoscar, Rushing — and now Mookie's wrist piled on top. Here's George Bissell at NBC Sports:
Dodgers recalled LHP Charlie Barnes from Triple-A Oklahoma City. Barnes provides Los Angeles with a fresh relief arm, and some additional length in the process, prior to Wednesday’s bullpen game against the Athletics at hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento. The 30-year-old southpaw has made three appearances between the Dodgers and Cubs this season.
So we lose Mookie off the top of the lineup and the counterpunch is Charlie Barnes? Guy's made three appearances all season, split between us and the Cubs. Slow down — Barnes wasn't called up because of the Mookie scratch we hit earlier. They needed a fresh lefty arm with some length, because Wednesday's a bullpen game against the A's at Sutter Health Park. That's a hitter's yard. And the other half of the move: Wyatt Mills gets optioned right back to Oklahoma City. Per True Blue LA, the kid's whole big-league stay lasted under 24 hours. Less than a day! Blink and you're back on the shuttle to Triple-A. That's the depth pipeline for you — arms you can call up, plural, and apparently send right back. It still tells you the pipeline's producing, though. They're dipping into Oklahoma City again, and there's another lefty ready to go. This one comes via Fox Sports 990. Fox Sports 990 lays it out pretty cleanly: Dodgers 56-30, Padres barely treading water at 43-42. San Diego's right there on the schedule, and they're only one game over .500. And STILL — the one series where I want the full lineup, the injured list reads like a roll call. Smith, Muncy, Teoscar, Rushing, and now Mookie's wrist scratch we just hit up top. Right, and the roster churn fits the same picture — Barnes recalled, Mills optioned back to Triple-A. The pipeline keeps coughing up arms, even as they keep drawing on it. Sasaki versus Randy Vasquez tonight, then Ohtani on the mound Friday in front of a Padres crowd. That's your live stress test — patchwork bullpen, thinned-out lineup, division rival. Thirteen games up on them, Joey. I remember when we'd have taken a thirteen-game cushion and a full trainer's room in a heartbeat. Now that Mookie's wrist is in the same pile as Will Smith, Muncy, Teoscar, and Rushing, where does the front office draw the line between 'we're managing bodies in July' and 'we've got a roster problem that changes the plan'? The first thing I’d look at is the gap between what Dave Roberts says out loud and what the injury report shows. On Mookie, Roberts called the scratch precautionary. Per CBS Sports, Betts was pulled from Wednesday's lineup against the Athletics with right wrist soreness, and Roberts framed it as something that doesn't appear serious. Fine — that's day-to-day management. Will Smith is different. Roberts told reporters, per SI, 'I think we're all surprised how long it's taken,' and he said he hopes Smith is back before the All-Star break, but he's not sure. When your manager is hedging on his All-Star catcher like that, you have to plan for more than maintenance. Then layer in the FanGraphs roster resource: Teoscar was on a rehab assignment as of June 23rd after a strained hamstring, and Enrique Hernández was also on the IL with an oblique and no timetable. So you've got one guy they're managing day to day, one they're genuinely unsure about, and two working back through the system. Four different injury situations, four different planning responses. They did go 8-1 on that road trip even while juggling all of this, so does the depth actually absorb it — or are they just running hot right now and masking something? The production's real. SI noted they outscored Oakland 18-7 over two games, with homers from Muncy, Pages, Ohtani, Edman, and Rojas, so the lineup isn’t visibly cracking yet. But if Smith's timeline slips past the break, the deadline conversation changes fast. When your manager says, 'we're all surprised how long it's taken,' that's when you start asking whether a backup catcher with some upside makes more sense than just cycling through depth options. Got a Dodgers take, a story idea, or a correction for us? Send it our way at dodgersdailyfancast at lantern podcasts dot com. We always appreciate hearing from listeners.
Next up: Thursday’s Padres-Dodgers opener is listed as Roki Sasaki versus Randy Vasquez at 10:10 p.m. Eastern. Friday has Shohei Ohtani against Michael King, also at 10:10, and Saturday lists Yoshinobu Yamamoto versus Griffin Canning at 10:10.
You’ll find links to every story we mentioned in the show notes, if you want to spend a little more time with any of them. That’s Dodgers Daily Podcast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.