{"id":117932,"date":"2026-04-04T22:02:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=117932"},"modified":"2026-04-04T22:02:59","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:02:59","slug":"dodgers-mookie-betts-sidelined-back-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/04\/04\/dodgers-mookie-betts-sidelined-back-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers Shortstop Sidelined with Back Pain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Dodgers will be without shortstop <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bettsmo01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mookie Betts<\/a> for at least a few games. He experienced lower back pain while scoring from first on a <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/freemfr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Freddie Freeman<\/a> double. The veteran will have an MRI on Saturday night to determine the extent of the injury. It is unknown if a stint on the injured list will be necessary. Manager <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/managers\/roberda07.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dave Roberts<\/a> called the symptoms &#8220;more moderate than concerning.&#8221; <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kimhy02.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hyeseong Kim<\/a> will be recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City in case he is needed, according to Katie Woo of The Athletic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: 610px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBPYUzfmhY\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 3072px; aspect-ratio: 3072\/2048;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h2>Mookie Betts Day-to-Day with Back Injury<\/h2>\n<h2>The Injury Bug Bites Again<\/h2>\n<p>This is the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/03\/17\/dodgers-mookie-betts-out-tokyo-series-illness\/\" target=\"_self\">second time i<\/a>n two years that Mookie Betts has been sidelined by injury or health concerns early in the season. He had a virus in 2025 that caused him to miss the opening series in Japan.\u00a0 The illness made him lose more than 20 pounds. Hopefully, this injury is less severe, and the time Betts will be more cautious. Betts, by <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/02\/05\/three-dodgers-under-most-pressure-to-perform-2026\/\" target=\"_self\">his own admission,<\/a> had a down year offensively last year. The perennial All-Star has a career batting average of .290. Last year, it was nearly 30 points lower. Likewise, he had a slow inaugural week, hitting below .200. However, he was showing signs of breaking out during yesterday&#8217;s game, going 2-for-6, including a home run.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Dodgers will likely have a player ready tomorrow regardless of Betts\u2019 MRI results. Hyeseong Kim is the logical candidate. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KPpOtrLD1n\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/KPpOtrLD1n<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/katiejwoo\/status\/2040569312369353020?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 4, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>The Door is Open<\/h2>\n<p>Kim has another chance to make a good impression. He was sent down to the minors at the end of spring training after a much-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/02\/18\/dodgers-second-base-position-battle-spring-training-without-edman\/\" target=\"_self\">position battle<\/a> with <a  target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/freelal01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-04-04_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Alex Freeland<\/a>. Kim needed to work on his at-bat quality, refine his swing, and get some defensive time in center field. For what it is worth, he is hitting .346, including a game where he went 5-for-5 with a home run.<\/p>\n<h2>Depth Will Be Tested<\/h2>\n<p>The Dodgers have one of the deepest rosters in baseball. It will be tested far sooner than they probably anticipated.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Dodgers will be without shortstop Mookie Betts for at least a few games. He experienced lower back pain while scoring from first on a Freddie Freeman double. The veteran will have an MRI on Saturday night to determine the extent of the injury. It is unknown if a stint on the injured [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5226,"featured_media":98245,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1071,35],"tags":[29076,257,206,28818,250],"class_list":["post-117932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dodgers","category-mlb","category-news","tag-alex-freeland","tag-dave-roberts","tag-freddie-freeman","tag-hyeseong-kim","tag-mookie-betts"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5226"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117932"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117951,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117932\/revisions\/117951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}