Freddie Freeman will sit out Friday night’s game against the Milwaukee Brewers, but the Los Angeles Dodgers are treating it as exactly what it is: a scheduled day off.
The absence has nothing to do with the fall Freeman took into the dugout on Wednesday against the Kansas City Royals. He was in the lineup Thursday for the series opener against Milwaukee, and the Dodgers had already been working through rest days for their regulars this week. Kyle Tucker and Teoscar Hernández each got a day off before Mookie Betts was out of the lineup Thursday.
Freeman’s tumble came in the eighth inning of the finale against Kansas City, when he went after a foul ball near the dugout and kept drifting backward while looking up. He ended up going down the stairs, a frightening moment that could have been much worse.
Afterward, Freeman said he felt soreness throughout his body, but he was fortunate to avoid anything more serious. Royals trainers and several players came over to check on him, and Miguel Rojas also hurried down the stairs.
“All the Royals were just like, ‘lay down, lay down!’ It’s like, well, let me get up and see if I fall back down,” Freeman said after Wednesday’s game.
“Because I was lying, there’s another staircase that goes into their clubhouse, and I think that’s what kind of saved me. I landed on that, and that’s what gave leeway for my head.
“When I fell, I fell onto the other staircase, so that kind of helped not hit my head on anything. So I really didn’t want to lay at an angle and wait for our trainers to get there. So I just got up, and I was sore immediately, but I had adrenaline flowing.”
Even with that scare, Freeman wanted to be back in the lineup the next day. He went through treatment, and his availability depended on how he felt Thursday morning.
“He just text me [Thursday] morning and said he was good to go, a little sore, but won’t compromise his performance,” Roberts said before Thursday’s game. “Which was encouraging.”
That mindset is nothing new for Freeman. Roberts said the veteran rarely gives himself an easy exit and has long pushed to stay on the field, even when he’s dealing with discomfort.
“I think it’s one of those things where Freddie is just of the mind that he doesn’t give himself an out,” Roberts said. “He’s played through worse, and he signed up to play.
There’s just no other option. So even for me, convincing him that [Friday] is a good day to take off was not easy.”
Roberts also pointed to Freeman’s presence beyond the box score, saying his approach raises the standard for the rest of the clubhouse.
“It makes everybody around him better,” Roberts said. “You’re not always going to feel your best, but you still have to have that ability to be out there. When you have Freddie, or Mookie, Will Smith, or Kyle Tucker who has been going through it all year, it’s still a presence in the lineup.
“He understands that and he makes other people understand that as well.”
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