ATLANTA — Los Angeles Dodgers setup man Daniel Hudson attempted to dart off the mound to field a slow roller in Friday night’s eighth inning and twisted his left knee in the process. After the game, a 4-1 victory over the Atlanta Braves, the team learned it might have been a worst-case scenario.
“It’s an ACL,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It just doesn’t look good, from all indications. Things can happen, but I just don’t see how it’s not the end of his season. So it’s potentially a huge loss for us.”
Hudson is expected to undergo a CT scan in Los Angeles on Saturday, but Roberts said the initial tests “didn’t look great.”
The Dodgers already are expected to be without Walker Buehler, their ace, and Blake Treinen, arguably their most important reliever, for a prolonged stretch. Earlier Friday, another one of their starters, Andrew Heaney, was diagnosed with a shoulder strain that prompted him to return to the injured list, though the Dodgers are hopeful he’ll only miss a couple of starts.
Hudson, who signed to a one-year, $7 million contract with a team option over the offseason, entered Friday with a 2.25 ERA, a 0.88 WHIP and a 6.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio, thriving in the eighth-inning role vacated by Treinen’s absence. Brusdar Graterol could play a part in forming the bridge to closer Craig Kimbrel moving forward, but Roberts expects other relievers also to get that opportunity.
“Huddy’s a guy that we count on in a lot of different ways — on the field, one of the leaders in the clubhouse, always doing the right thing, saying the right thing,” Roberts said. “Obviously with Blake down, we relied heavily on him in leverage spots. To not have him with us — there’s an exponential effect to our ballclub. But we gotta move forward.”