Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman did play in Canada’s World Baseball Classic game Wednesday as the team was eliminated from the international tournament and was diagnosed with a mild hamstring injury.
Freeman tweaked his hamstring during his second at-bat of Tuesday’s 5-0 victory over Colombia. The Dodgers requested that Freeman not play in Canada’s Pool C finale Wednesday against Mexico and the veteran returned to L.A.’s spring training complex at Glendale, Ariz.
“I’m feeling OK,” Freeman said, according to the Orange County Register. “Yesterday, my second at-bat, fastball outside, I kind of reached for it and for some reason, (I felt) a little tightness in my hamstring, my right one, as I was running down to first base. I thought it was a cramp, but it obviously didn’t go away.”
The Dodgers already lost shortstop Gavin Lux for the season with a knee injury. Freeman is the anchor of the top of the Dodgers’ order, which lost Trea Turner to free agency this past offseason.
Freeman, who could be back on the field for the Dodgers as early as this weekend, was an All-Star during his first season in Los Angeles in 2022, batting .325 with a .918 OPS and 21 home runs with 100 RBIs. He finished fourth in National League MVP voting. In seven spring games, he hit three home runs with eight RBIs before leaving for the WBC and was 2-for-10 with an RBI in three games for Canada.
Freeman, 33, played his first 12 major league seasons with the Atlanta Braves and is a .298 career hitter with an .895 OPS, 292 home runs and 1,041 RBIs over 1,724 games. The Southern California native was the NL MVP in 2020.
–Field Level Media
