{"id":338602,"date":"2026-05-30T03:44:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T03:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338602\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T03:44:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T03:44:22","slug":"dodgers-bring-back-santiago-espinal-address-bench-in-roster-moves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/338602\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers bring back Santiago Espinal, address bench in roster moves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Dodgers<\/a> made a series of roster moves Friday, reconfiguring their bench after a wave of injuries.<\/p>\n

They re-signed utility player Santiago Espinal<\/a>, whose skill set was no longer redundant when Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> returned to the injured list, this time with a strained left oblique.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously you don\u2019t ever know how those things are going to play out,\u201d Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes<\/a> said Friday. \u201cSo when he cleared [waivers] and then became a free agent, we had a couple guys go down right away. We reached back out to see if he would be interested in rejoining us. So luckily he was still in L.A. and that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a corresponding move, the Dodgers optioned utility player Hyeseong Kim<\/a> to triple-A Oklahoma City, giving him regular at-bats in a low-pressure environment to work on his swing. And they transferred left-hander Blake Snell<\/a> (left elbow) to the 60-day injured list to clear room on the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Kim\u2019s] swing has changed,\u201d manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said. \u201cI think he\u2019s losing his legs a little bit, he\u2019s coming around the ball a little bit, there\u2019s a lot more swing-and-miss than there was early. He is just playing, with my eyes, a little bit more tentative, and not as free and easy as he was in some parts of last year and early on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers also put Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> (strained left hamstring) on the 10-day IL and recalled outfielder\/first baseman Ryan Ward.<\/p>\n

Hern\u00e1ndez was diagnosed with a Grade 1 strain, Roberts said, a less severe injury than expected. But the team does not have a timeline for his return.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Said Gomes: \u201cOnce he gets going, we\u2019re hoping it\u2019ll be a quick return, and we\u2019ll try to get him some rehab at-bats. When that happened last year, we probably rushed it a bit on that front.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year, Hern\u00e1ndez played in just one rehab game returning from a strained groin.<\/p>\n

In Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s absence, Alex Call and Ward are expected to share time in left field in what Roberts said won\u2019t be a \u201ccomplete platoon.\u201d The right-handed hitting Call started Friday, even though the Dodgers faced Phillies right-handed starter Zack Wheeler.<\/p>\n

\u201cWheeler is just a really good pitcher,\u201d said Roberts about the three-time All-Star. \u201cI want Alex to be in there and just feel that Alex can kind of manage him and take some good at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Dodgers made a series of roster moves Friday, reconfiguring their bench after a wave of injuries. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[139588,65636,426,2424,349,6128,48,52,51,7036,3164,479,47,50,49,424,139587,85851,425,10194,315],"class_list":["post-338602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-address-bench","tag-alex-call","tag-dodgers","tag-friday","tag-injury","tag-kike-hernandez","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-year","tag-list","tag-little-bit","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-roberts","tag-roster-move","tag-santiago-espinal","tag-series","tag-swing","tag-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}