Corey Seager’s return timetable becoming clearer

The timetable for Corey Seager’s returned to the Dodgers remains roughly the same as it has been over the last week or so. But we might have a little clearer idea of the structure of the plan to be activated from the injured list.

No longer wearing a splint on his broken right hand, only tape, Seager took grounders at shortstop before Friday’s game against the Rangers at Dodger Stadium, and made throws to first base.

Seager was taking one-handed swings on the road trip to test his hand, and on Wednesday and Thursday started taking two-handed swings while hitting a tennis ball. At some point, probably on this homestand, he’ll start taking swings at a baseball, which means batting practice isn’t too far away.

“Once he [takes swings with a baseball], it would be a couple days after that that we’ll get him in batting practice. Then we can set up some live sessions,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday. “It’s just really hard for me to pin that down right now.”

Roberts felt a little more comfortable saying it was fair to assume Seager is about two weeks away from a rehab assignment, one that will likely be longer than the five games (over six days) that Cody Bellinger and Zach McKinstry played with Triple-A Oklahoma City.

“I would say seven games is probably the floor,” Roberts said of Seager’s rehab assignment.

That likely puts Seager’s activation, if all goes well, at some point in the first week of July, which would be roughly seven weeks after a pitch from Ross Detwiler on May 15 broke the fifth metacarpal on Seager’s right hand.