Dodgers' Longtime Starter Isn't Sure Why Pitchers are Seeing so Many Injuries This Season

Maren Angus-Coombs | Apr 18, 2024

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Longtime Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Clayton Kershaw has spent his share of time on the injured list in his career, but he didn't need surgery until this offseason. He sees what is happening to pitchers across the league and has some thoughts — but doesn't know the answer to what ails the league.

“If someone says, ‘I have it figured out,’ I wouldn’t listen to them,” Kershaw told The Athletic.

Still, the three-time Cy Young Award winner and longtime face of the Los Angeles Dodgers face is curious.

“I’m very wary of people that think they have it all figured out when all of this is still happening,” Kershaw said. “If you had it figured out, you would’ve told somebody and made a billion dollars. You know what I mean? Nobody knows.”

Kershaw spoke last Friday, hours after Shohei Ohtani completed the most recent stage of his throwing progression after having his second elbow surgery. Walker Buehler made his third minor-league rehabilitation start as he continued his recovery from his second Tommy John surgery.

The Dodgers certainly aren't alone in terms of the talent stashed on their injured list, but the numbers are staggering. Out of the 28 pitchers listed on the team's 40-man roster, 12 have had at least one Tommy John surgery while four have had some form of major shoulder repair.

“Everybody has theories,” Kershaw said of baseball's injury epidemic. “It’s probably a combination of what everybody’s talking about, whether it be added velocity, weighted ball programs too young, all this stuff that people talk about. But at the end of the day, nobody knows. Nobody knows the perfect formula, and if they did, they’d be doing it. So I think the question we need to ask is, how do we fix it? And then somebody has to be brave enough to put their neck out and try something different."

Regardless of the why, Kershaw hopes everyone can work together to remedy a solution and put an end to the bickering.

“At the end of the day, we just want the best players to be on the field,” Kershaw said. “That’s true of every sport. So if there’s a way to do that better, I hope that MLB, the union, everybody would be all on board to figuring that out. I just haven’t heard somebody tell me definitively what would help.”