Commentary: Will a few days rest really make a difference for Yasmani Grandal?

Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal watches his two-run home run against the Philadelphia Phillies during the sixth inning of a game on July 7 at Dodger Stadium.

By Steve Dilbeck

Sept. 8, 2015 9:05 PM PT

This latest effort by the Dodgers to deal with sore-shouldered Yasmani Grandal marks an improvement, but you have to wonder if it’s any kind of real solution.

Grandal had an MRI Tuesday that showed inflammation in the shoulder but no structural damage, so everybody was back to where they were before.

“Basically what we already knew,” Grandal said. “Nothing’s really changed.”

Grandal sat out his second consecutive day to rest the shoulder and let the inflammation subside, but Manager Don Mattingly said he only expected Grandal to be out days, not weeks, even while saying the issue will likely remain the rest of the season.

“We’re giving him a little bit of time to calm down, and then slowly getting back into it,” Mattingly said. “Hopefully he’ll be able to play through it. It sounds like this thing is not going to totally go away during this time.”

Well, probably not if he only sits for a few days and then comes back and irritates it all over again. Maybe a couple of weeks wouldn’t do it either, but you have to like the chances better than to continually push him back out there before it has a decent chance to heal.

Grandal, like most players, wants to be on the field. He wants to play through this. But he’s also hitless in his last 33 at-bats and is three for 55 since he injured the shoulder taking a sharp foul ball to his non-throwing shoulder in Philadelphia.

Grandal said he has no interest in shutting down beyond the short term.

“We’re going to play through it,” he said. “There’s no reason to shut me down. I can tolerate pain. It’s going to be one of those things that’s going to be day to day. We’ll see how I am one day and, if I can’t help my team out to the best of my abilities, shut me down for that day. Hopefully the next day I’ll be able to play.”

Well, there’s being brave and then there’s being smart. The Dodgers can hope he returns to his first-half form, but you have to wonder if it’s going to happen giving him mini-breaks.

Plus, Grandal was clearly not being forthcoming about his injury previously, so how does the team know it can believe his self-review now? There’s a postseason run on the horizon and they can’t have a player concealing injury.

“It hurts everybody,” Mattingly said. “It hurts himself, it hurts the team if he’s not going to be honest.”

Going 0-for-33 is pretty telling, but October is a difficult time to have to learn that lesson again.