Diaz's Rehab Struggles Compound Henriquez Injury For Dodgers Bullpen

The Dodgers bullpen took two separate body blows within a span of about 24 hours, and neither one is the kind you shake off heading into a playoff push. First came word that Edgardo Henriquez, who's quietly been one of the best arms in that pen all year, is done for the rest of the regular season with a back issue. Then there's Edwin Diaz, who just turned in his worst rehab outing yet, and it's getting harder to see a clean path back for him before October.

Henriquez's number says it all: a 2.85 ERA across 61 appearances, leading the bullpen in innings and posting the best xERA on the staff behind only Tanner Scott in strikeouts. Per MLB.com, the Dodgers placed him on the 15-day IL with low back discomfort, a move that ends his regular season, though the team hasn't ruled out a postseason return depending on how the recovery goes. Losing a reliever with that kind of workload and results this late in the year is the sort of thing that doesn't show up on a scoreboard until it does.

Diaz's situation is the more complicated one. The Dodgers signed him to a record-setting deal for a reliever last offseason, and his first year in LA has been a mess of injuries and diminished stuff — he's already been through elbow surgery to remove loose bodies and is now working back from neck inflammation. His fastball has been sitting at the lowest average velocity of his career, and it's showing up in the results: in his latest Triple-A outing he retired just 2 of 8 batters faced, throwing only 13 strikes on 30 pitches.

Zoom out and it's been four outings over eight days of rehab ball for Diaz, and across those he's allowed 6 runs in 3 1/3 innings with 7 walks against just 4 strikeouts. That's not a guy who's rusty — that's a guy who genuinely doesn't have it right now, which puts the Dodgers in a bind about when, or if, he's ready to be trusted in a high-leverage October spot.

There's at least one bit of good news buried in the same update: Kris Bubic's rehab assignment has gone the other way, quietly stacking zeroes, and he's reportedly a candidate to rejoin the Dodgers as soon as this series in Cincinnati. That kind of reinforcement matters more now that Henriquez is off the board and Diaz is a question mark.

All of this is unfolding while the Dodgers are still jockeying for their playoff seeding, needing either a win in Cincinnati or help from the Padres and Diamondbacks to lock up a postseason berth. A bullpen banged up like this heading into October is exactly the kind of thing that turns a World Series favorite into a nervous watch every time a reliever jogs in from the pen.