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Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman tracked Royals hitter Isaac Collins’ fly ball through foul territory to just outside the visiting dugout at Dodger Stadium.
He had a plan. With one out in the top of the eighth inning, Freeman was going to lean over the rail to make the catch.
He shuffled, shifted his weight, and the ground disappeared out from under him.
“Obviously there was no rail,” a sore but apparently not seriously injured Freeman said after the Dodgers’ 4-2 win against the Royals.
He pitched sideways, practically clearing the first set of steps and landing on the second flight. Freeman braced himself on his right side, which took the brunt of the impact. But thanks to the angle of the steps, he never hit his head, he said.
“Kneecaps are sore, shoulder is sore, hand is sore, wrist is sore,” Freeman said. “I mean, I fell. But I’m in good spirits. I’ve already cold tubbed. I’ve done everything I needed to do to put myself in a position to be able to hopefully play [Thursday].”
Manager Dave Roberts described Freeman’s status as “day to day” and noted that he’d already planned to give him a day off Friday, the second game of a four-game series against the Brewers. The Dodgers will monitor how Freeman is feeling Thursday morning.
“I think that we really dodged the bullet,” Roberts said. Freeman did not undergo any imaging on his various aches and pains, although he said head athletic trainer Thomas Albert asked if he felt like he needed any.
“I said, ‘Do you want to do a whole-body X-ray?’” Freeman recounted. “And he was like, ‘We can.’ But no, I’m OK.”
Left-hander Eric Lauer, who could be odd man out when the postseason begins, pitches well as Dodgers sweep the Royals.
Freeman was sore immediately after the fall but finished that half inning in the field. He said after the adrenaline wore off, he motioned to the dugout that he might need a pinch-hitter in the bottom half of the eighth. He was due up first.
Utility player Tommy Edman took the at-bat for him, and Kiké Hernández replaced him at first in the top of the ninth.
It wasn’t the first time Freeman has taken a tumble chasing after a foul ball, but he estimated the last time was about a decade ago, with the Braves in Arizona before they extended the netting.
