When news broke that Dalton Rushing suffered a partially torn UCL in his right elbow back in August, fans openly wondered if and when the Los Angeles Dodgers catcher would have surgery to fix it.
At the time, any surgery would have effectively ended his season, leaving LA without a key bat on the bench, so, after deliberation, the team opted for rehab instead, allowing Rushing to remain a pinch-hitting option for another World Series run.
Unfortunately, that World Series berth didn't materialize, and now Rushing will be unable to catch full-time for the next nine months after undergoing right elbow surgery on October 21, which Andrew Freedman revealed to reporters like Maddie Lee of the LA Times during his season-of-season press conference.
Article Continues Below“Dodgers' Dalton Rushing is undergoing right elbow surgery today, per sources,” Lee wrote. “It's expected to be a hybrid internal brace procedure. The expected timeline to return to catching full time is 9 months, with a return to hitting well before then.”
On paper, the Dodgers' desire to keep Rushing's bat available made sense, as he was a quality performer at times during the season. But the emergence of Josue De Paula as a major league hitter quickly made Rushing irrelevant, to the point where he didn't take a single at-bat against the Atlanta Braves or the Milwaukee Brewers. With his catching return now set for mid-summer, the Dodgers will have to hope reserves like Hunter Feduccia can hold things down behind Will Smith, or that Rushing can find some work at first base to remain a more consistent part of Dave Roberts' offense.