PHOENIX – Freddie Freeman spent his miserable week wandering. Just getting him to take three days off, even with a nondisplaced hairline fracture on his right middle finger, was a chore. His finger had already been an impediment enough over the past few weeks, limiting Freeman and keeping him from the kind of habits he feels are responsible for his career. When that didn’t go well, and the pain continued, Freeman succumbed for a series off.
The Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman went down between innings and swung, though he remained largely limited in the amount of work the training staff allowed him to do. When the Dodgers’ games against the Baltimore Orioles would get to the later innings, he’d bluff and head back down the tunnel as if he were getting set to pinch hit. Largely, he sat in his usual post midway across the top row of bench seats in the home dugout and did something he’s hardly done in his 15 seasons in the big leagues: He sat and watched a whole game without playing.
“He (was) a nuisance,” manager Dave Roberts said with a smirk.
A highlight came Wednesday afternoon when a meandering Freeman decided to explore the home bullpen. The mere sight of their first baseman induced a raucous ovation. It was short-lived.
“That’s an interesting group down there in the bullpen,” Freeman said.
Freeman’s finger was still broken when he returned to the lineup on Friday in Phoenix. It won’t heal by the time the Dodgers start their postseason run next month, so he and the club figured giving it a few more days for the pain to subside was the best course of action. Not that it had gone all that well in the time since Freeman hurt his finger in the first place on Aug. 17 in St. Louis: he got three hits in his 23 at-bats. He could only take 10 swings in the cage before games as his early work. Throwing hurt more than anything, and the splint he was forced to wear made just about any throw he made liable to shoot unpredictably out of his hand.
“I can still play (with it broken),” Freeman said. “Obviously, I didn’t play very well. But I can still go out there and compete.”
There’s less discomfort these days. As he spoke Friday, Freeman massaged a splint-less finger. He didn’t wear it during any of his rounds of batting practice or during the game. And, in his first at-bat back on Friday, he showcased where his finger was at by taking Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen deep to left field for a two-run homer.
Freddie Freeman swats.@Dodgers lead. pic.twitter.com/FajU2j9WYF
— MLB (@MLB) August 31, 2024
More than anything, Freeman said, he feels reset after what has been a trying month.
“He’s had a heavy heart for quite some time,” Roberts said.
Freeman had missed all of two games in his three seasons as a Dodger before he left the club last month when his youngest son, Maximus, was hospitalized. The ordeal was trying, and Maximus was diagnosed with Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition that left the three-year-old temporarily paralyzed and still requiring extensive physical therapy. While his son has been healing well in recent weeks, this week provided his first chance to digest all that’s come with the situation.
“A lot’s been going on the last six, seven weeks,” Freeman said. “So I think we would say it was a finger break, but I took the last three days of trying to just shut the brain off and just not really worry too much about things and give my mind a break.
“Got to sleep with the boys in their room. Did the best I can to be Dad to them. And now I’m back here and giving everything I can to the game now.”
It helped when the Dodgers took two of their three games against Baltimore and expanded their division lead to four games. It also helped that Freeman came back as the Dodgers returned to the site of their latest October disappointment against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, where they were swept out of last year’s NLDS.
“I think you can even go back the next two years, where it’s been very … disappointing is certainly an understatement, how it ended,” Roberts said. “This is sort of the scene of the crime last year. So it’s very fresh in my mind…This is a big series. We all say they’re all big, but when you’re playing a division rival that’s trailing and that’s on the come, it’s a big series.”
The two culprits, the Diamondbacks and Padres, have tightened things again in a division the Dodgers have dominated for a decade. Coming back here for four games provided an opportunity for separation.
That was at least part of the Dodgers’ thinking. Freeman’s finger remains broken, but can’t get worse by playing. So they plan on playing him until his finger commands otherwise.
“In my mind, I’m going to play every day,” he said. “I might get a call again, and we’ll see. But you know, I feel way better than I did last week, more of the fact that I’ve been able to prepare like I normally do. So that’s what I’m hoping.”
(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)
