Dodgers: Dave Roberts Guarded On Joe Kelly’s Health Status

In case you haven’t noticed, Dodgers’ reliever Joe Kelly has not appeared in a game since this past Wednesday (September 18). Moreover, it’s more important to have Kelly feeling good for the postseason than to throw tune-up innings the last week of September.

With that being said, there is some dialogue ongoing about Kelly’s exact status. While Dave Roberts speaks optimistically about Kelly being able to return, it remains something to keep an eye on.

First, Jorge Castillo tells us on twitter not to plan on seeing Kelly on Tuesday or Wednesday. Equally important is that Roberts wouldn’t expand upon what the nature of Kelly’s injury is. What we do know is that it is a nagging ‘lower body’ injury that we wrote about a few days ago.

Dave Roberts said Joe Kelly won’t pitch today or tomorrow. He again declined to specify Kelly’s injury. He hasn’t pitched since last Wednesday.

— Jorge Castillo (@jorgecastillo) September 25, 2019

However, there’s more via Bill Plunkett of the OC Register. Plunkett uses the jargon from Roberts that it is ‘overall-body-itis’ which means not much in terms of specifics. In fact, in manager-speak this just could mean he wants to give him as much rest as possible for a nagging injury like the one I talked about above.

Roberts: "His head space and where his body is at is most important and right now the body part isn't quite where we want it to be. So once it gets there — hopefully it'll be Thursday — we'll put him back in the mix."

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) September 25, 2019

Roberts continued to talk about Kelly’s status, and said this:

“His head space and where his body is at is most important and right now the body part isn’t quite where we want it to be. So once it gets there – hopefully it will be Thursday – we’ll put him back in the mix.”

In translation, Kelly seems to be getting rest for this lower body injury of unspecified origin, but he’s in a good place mentally.

Finally, Roberts added a little bit of confidence in his reliever’s well-being with a final quote on the pre-game interview.

“The expectation is that he’ll be ready to go when the bell rings”

Without a doubt, the Dodgers need Joe Kelly to make a run back to their third straight World Series appearance. This is just as big as a slugger coming up lame with a tight hamstring. Let’s hope that Kelly is feeling better in a few days.