ST. LOUIS – Very little this season has gone the way Brian Dozier would have planned.
“Spring training until now, it’s been the most learning experience of my life. Let’s just put it that way,” said the Dodgers infielder acquired from the Minnesota Twins at the trade deadline.
Dozier was already having a sub-par season with the Twins when he joined the Dodgers. The move up the standings into a playoff race energized Dozier. He had three hits in his first game with the Dodgers and nine RBI and three home runs in his first eight games. But a deep slump followed.
Going into Saturday’s game, Dozier has batted .183 with the Dodgers, including just one hit in his past 34 plate appearances.
It all stems from a bone bruise in his right knee, suffered in April. Dozier had an MRI on the knee at the time, which showed no structural damage, but he said “a few days in a row in May, I made some plays that irritated something” and he has dealt with some level of discomfort ever since.
“You go through things throughout the year. It’s been a little struggle since pretty much, I don’t know, middle of May, I guess. I’m just trying to grind through it,” Dozier said.
“But that’s by no means trying to make an excuse. It feels great right now. You just develop bad habits in your swing when stuff like that happens. You try to find ways around it. I’ve never made excuses I just try to go out there and play.”
Dozier never went on the disabled list with the injury (and has never been on the DL in his career) and never missed more than one game at a time with the Twins.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he didn’t know about the injury until last week.
“From what I hear, it’s a lot better than it was,” Roberts said. “But when you’re dealing with an injury, it sometimes has a way of sort of bleeding into your mechanics and affecting how things go. The next thing you know, you look up and go, ‘What happened?’ I think there’s a little bit of that too.”
Dozier acknowledges his swing has not been “where I’d like it to be” often this season. He has reached 20 home runs for a fifth consecutive season. But his batting average (.216) is a career low and his on-base and slugging percentages (and OPS) are all the lowest since his partial season as a rookie in 2012.
“It’s been a constant struggle to fire into my front side,” he said of the limitations caused by his knee pain. “It gets irritating. But that’s just the way it is and you find ways around it. Firing into my front side is the way my swing works, creating power and leverage and space and all that kind of stuff. The thing now is to keep firing into the front side so that I pull my weight into it as I make that transition.”
Another transition has also been painful for Dozier to make. An everyday player throughout his career in Minnesota, Dozier has been reduced to starting only against left-handed pitching in Los Angeles, with his playing time sporadic and diminished. And all of this just as he is about to go into free agency.
“It doesn’t really have anything to do with that. I’m a man of faith,” the 31-year-old Dozier said. “Me and my family, we don’t chase the money. We believe God puts us in place for reasons and we’re all for it.
“It’s just a very good learning experience. … But you know what, it’s made me a helluva man, a better man.”
TWO MORE
Relievers Tony Cingrani and John Axford each pitched for Class-A Rancho Cucamonga in their title-clinching playoff win. Cingrani pitched a hitless inning, striking out two of the four batters he faced. Axford gave up a run in 2/3 of an inning.
Roberts said both pitchers will join the Dodgers when they return to Los Angeles on Monday. They will be activated from the DL (giving the Dodgers 38 players on their active roster), but Roberts said he does not know how or when they will be used.
UP NEXT
Dodgers RHP Ross Stripling (8-3, 2.61 ERA) at Cardinals RHP Adam Wainwright (1-3, 4.70 ERA), Sunday, 5:05 p.m., ESPN