Blake Treinen injures shoulder warming up, out for Dodgers' postseason

Blake Treinen's 2026 season ended in the bullpen before he threw a single pitch in a game, per The Athletic's Fabian Ardaya. The Dodgers right-hander injured his shoulder while warming up and is not expected to play again this season or in the postseason, according to manager Dave Roberts, who also relayed that Treinen would go for imaging and is headed to the injured list.

What happened

Roberts addressed reporters — including Maddie Lee of the Los Angeles Times — after the injury, offering a quote that managed to be both measured and quietly devastating: "I don't know if it was a complete blowout, but it's really unfortunate." The specific nature of the shoulder injury will not be known until the imaging results come back, per AJ Eustace at MLB Trade Rumors. Whether Treinen will require surgery remains an open question at this point.

What is not in question is the outcome for this season. Treinen is not expected to appear again, closing the book on a two-year, $22MM deal he signed with the Dodgers heading into 2025.

Why it matters

The timing is painful in a way that goes beyond the postseason calculus. Treinen had spent much of the last two seasons working his way back from one thing or another — right forearm tightness cost him over three months in 2025, and elbow inflammation took another two months and change out of the current season. He had finally looked like a functional, if diminished, version of himself in 2026, and the reward for that persistence was a shoulder injury during warmups.

Per Ardaya's report, Treinen would have been in play for low-leverage spots in the postseason. That role is now gone. The Dodgers, to put it gently, are not a team that will be scrambling to replace a low-leverage reliever. But the human cost of what could be a fifth significant injury absence in five seasons — if that is indeed what the imaging bears out — is its own story, separate from any roster arithmetic.

Per AJ Eustace at MLB Trade Rumors, if Treinen does require surgery it would represent his fifth major injury absence over that span. He appeared in just three games in April of 2022 and two more that September before undergoing surgery that November to address right shoulder soreness — a stretch of availability that, in hindsight, looks like a preview of what the next several years would bring.

The numbers

The 2026 season line tells the story of a pitcher who had genuinely turned something around, even if the margin for error had narrowed considerably. Across 36 appearances this year, Treinen pitched to a 3.64 ERA — a meaningful step forward from the 5.40 ERA he posted in 26 2/3 innings in 2025, when elevated walk rates and a career-low 33.3% ground ball rate suggested the stuff had eroded.

This year, the ground ball rate climbed back to 44.4%, and his walk rate dropped from 14.7% to a more manageable 10.0%. His 23.8% strikeout rate is his lowest since the 2020 season, per the report — worth noting as context, though the overall profile in 2026 was that of a pitcher who had found a workable version of himself again, even if it was not the dominant version from his peak years.

Where the club stands

At 99-62 (.615), the Dodgers sit first in the NL West and enter the day on a two-game winning streak. They have already clinched a top-two seed in the NL, earning a first-round bye for the 2026 postseason, per earlier reporting. They close out the regular season Sunday at Oracle Park against the San Francisco Giants, with probable pitchers listed as TBD for Los Angeles against Carson Seymour for San Francisco.

The roster picture heading into October is, by any reasonable measure, formidable. The rotation features Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Tyler Glasnow, and Blake Snell — the latter of whom threw four innings of one-run ball in his final postseason tune-up on the same day Treinen was injured, per AJ Eustace at MLB Trade Rumors. Roki Sasaki and 2026 All-Star Justin Wrobleski are expected to pitch in relief in October, adding further depth behind a bullpen that already includes closer Tanner Scott, setup man Alex Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez, and Jack Dreyer, among others.

Edwin Díaz is also on the roster, though per the report he has dealt with injuries and ineffectiveness this year, and the club has not committed to a spot for him on the postseason roster.

A week removed from rolling out their full postseason lineup together for the first time this season, and with Shohei Ohtani back from the injured list — he recorded a single in his first at-bat upon returning, per earlier reporting — the Dodgers are as close to full strength as they have been all year, Treinen's absence notwithstanding. Freddie Freeman has been playing through patellar tendinitis in his right knee, per earlier reporting, which remains a thread worth monitoring as October approaches.

What we don't know yet

The imaging has not yet come back, so the full diagnosis of Treinen's shoulder injury remains unknown. Whether surgery will be required — and what that would mean for his availability going forward — is not yet clear. AJ Eustace at MLB Trade Rumors frames surgery as a possibility contingent on those results, not a certainty.

What to watch

The postseason roster construction question is now, at least in one corner, answered for the Dodgers: Treinen will not be on it. The more interesting question is what the imaging reveals and whether this becomes a longer-term story about a pitcher who has navigated serious injury in each of the last several seasons. The desk will update when the results are reported.