Good luck finding a team in Major League Baseball more impacted by injury this season than the Los Angeles Dodgers.
They've missed huge chunks of their starting rotation throughout the season, and their lineup has been jumbled multiple times with a slew of starters missing games throughout the year.
While the regular-season injury situation hasn't been good, the Dodgers are all about October. And on that front things are looking up for LA entering the middle of August.
Most notably, rookie right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto began taking real steps toward a return to the starting rotation. His latest was a simulated game he threw at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
The Dodgers are in a good spot with Yamamoto who has been out since June 15 with a strained rotator cuff in his right shoulder. There's a small amount of urgency to get him back in the rotation, but they don't need to rush him back.
Ideally he'd be back for the playoffs, but throwing him into a postseason start when he hasn't pitched in four months would be dangerous. If he can return at some point in September where he can get a couple of games under his belt and stretch his arm back out to go six-plus innings, it would go a long way toward ensuring he can be as effective as possible in October.
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