A.J. Pollock reportedly has an elbow infection

After Monday night’s loss to the San Francisco Giants, various media members reported that manager Dave Roberts told them that outfielder A.J. Pollock had an infection in his right elbow. Roberts added that this will likely mean placing Pollock on the injured list.

For most of their game against the Giants, Pollock’s status was not brought up, he did not start but with a streak of left-handed starters on deck to face the Dodgers, a day off did not seem too unusual.

But late in the game. Dodger television broadcaster Joe Davis said on the air that manager Dave Roberts said that Pollock was unavailable but did not specify a reason.

Pollock’s status as a regular player had been recently raised to Roberts because of the combination of Alex Verdugo’s early success and Pollock’s slow start. But even as recently as before today’s game, Roberts reiterated that he did not see Pollock being part of any platoon situation.

Pollock and the disabled list are no strangers, last year he missed 43 games with a broken thumb that occurred on an attempt to catch a ball. It was three years ago, in April 2016, when Pollock had surgery for a broken elbow. He would play only 12 games in that season.

Back in January, when the Dodgers introduced Pollock to the media, Pollock commented about his health history.

Pollock said that a lot of his injuries were impact injuries, freak stuff. His injuries were not really overuse.

Andrew Friedman, President of Baseball Operations echoed these thoughts later saying that the due diligence indicated Pollock does all he can to stay healthy.

As far as his production on the field for the 2019 season, Pollock has had a slow start. He has started 26 games and played in 28 of the 30 prior to Monday night’s game in San Francisco.

He was hitting .223/.287/.330 in 115 plate appearances. He had two home runs and 14 RBI. Pollock also walked nine times while striking out 23 times.

While this will likely mean more playing time for Alex Verdugo, it will also mean some more time with Chris Taylor in the lineup too.

As far as a call up from the minor leagues, the two position players on the 40-man roster, Matt Beaty and Edwin Rios are both left-handed and neither can really play the outfield.

Earlier on Monday, it was reported by MLB.com reporter Ken Gurnick that outfielder Andrew Toles had reported to Camelback Ranch.

That might be the ideal replacement but you would think that it would take some time to get Toles ready to player up with the Dodgers.

But for now, all of this is speculation and we will likely not know anything until tomorrow afternoon before their second game against the Giants on Tuesday night.