Dodgers links: Josh Beckett to see nerve specialist, A.J. Ellis dealing with oblique

It has been one of the more painful weeks of the season for the Dodgers, and Thursday provided more and more bad news on the injury front.

Josh Beckett, who hasn't pitched since May 13, has been dealing with numbness in his fingers in addition to a left groin strain. Earlier in the week we learned Beckett's groin was fine, but he is headed to see nerve specialist Dr. Gregory Pearl in Dallas to figure out what is going on with the numbness in his fingers.

"It's something I've been dealing with," Beckett told Austin Laymance of MLB.com. "I'm not sure exactly when it came on. It wasn't painful. At the time we were losing starters left and right, so I felt like I needed to pitch because I didn't have any pain."

Beckett sounded even more pessimistic when in the interpretation of Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times:, saying, "I'm concerned. I've never dealt with anything like this for this amount of time. We'll just have to see what happens there."

But Beckett isn't alone, as catcher A.J. Ellis is dealing with an oblique injury, something that manager Don Mattingly hopes keeps Ellis out for a day or two, but acknowledged could be a disabled list situation, per Laymance.

Carl Crawford made a fantastic sliding catch in the second inning on Thursday, but in doing so scraped his wrist and hurt his back. "I know we’re kind of short on guys so I tried to fight through it," Crawford told J.P. Hoornstra of the Daily News. "It’s one of those things where you try to grind it out."

While it seems highly likely that Tony Gwynn Jr. will join the team at some point this weekend, as the Dodgers don't plan on having only Andre Ethier and Skip Schumaker in center field, Mark Saxon of ESPN Los Angeles floated the idea of Yasiel Puig, who played center field on Friday night in Double-A, still in the mix for a call-up. At the very least, Saxon reported that Joc Pederson, who is not on the 40-man roster, is not under consideration for a promotion at this time.

Jon Heyman of CBS Sports weighed in, and thinks the Dodgers should call up Puig.

But if Puig is joining the Dodgers, it appears it won't be Friday, as Kevin Baxter of the Times reported Friday morning that Puig is still in Mobile with the Lookouts.