Blake Treinen’s challenging recovery and Hanser Alberto on the mound again

The Dodgers activated reliever Blake Treinen from the 60-day injured list Friday and the right-hander got into the action Saturday, tossing a perfect inning on only five pitches.

Treinen spoke to the media after the Dodgers 12-1 win about the challenges he faced in what he called a “miracle” recovery from a partial tear in the capsule of the right shoulder.

Bill Plunkett of the Southern California Newspaper Group outlined Treinen’s thoughts on pitching coach Mark Prior helping him a lot during the recovery process since he had a similar injury.

“Learning to actually throw the crap out of the ball – for lack of a better term – in long toss instead of just guiding my arm to a slot and trying to keep it from having soreness or pain,” Treinen said of the first challenge in his recovery. “Once we got over that hurdle, there were no issues with trust.

With another Dodger blowout win Saturday, Hanser Alberto got to take the mound for the eighth time this season. The utility man recorded his first career strikeout and tripled, causing fun as he almost always does.

Will Smith hit his 20th homer of the season Saturday to make it the second consecutive year to hit that mark. The Dodger backstop hit 25 last year and if he were to hit five more this year to match the career-high, he would become the third in team history to hit at east 25 in two different seasons, joining Roy Campanella (1950-51, 1953, 1955) and Mike Piazza (1993, 95-97).

Links

• Keith Law at The Athletic wrote notes about September call-ups and briefly talked about the plans for Miguel Vargas.