![Dodgers_Mariners_Baseball_27100](https://www.sunjournal.com/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
Mookie Betts gets hit by a pitch during the ninth inning of the Dodgers game against the Seattle Mariners on Monday. Ted S. Warren/Associated Press
SEATTLE — Mookie Betts was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup on Tuesday after getting hit on the right forearm a night earlier, but manager Dave Roberts doesn’t expect it to be a long-term issue.
Roberts said X-rays on Betts’ arm were negative after the former MVP took a fastball from Seattle closer Rafael Montero off the inside of his right forearm in the ninth inning of Monday’s 4-3 Mariners victory. Betts remained in the game after getting hit.
Roberts said Betts was receiving treatment and that he was hoping to avoid using him in Tuesday’s game with the Dodgers having a day off on Wednesday before opening a four-game series with division rival San Diego on Thursday at Dodger Stadium.
“I was hoping that it would be something soft tissue, as opposed to you know the wrist or the elbow or something like that,” Roberts said. “I guess best case scenario. There was an exhale once he wanted to stay in there. So that’s part of it, the soreness, but I think that we dodged a bullet there.”
Betts is hitting .292 early in the season and already had one of the signature defensive moments of the season with his game-ending catch in the ninth inning last Saturday in a win over San Diego.
Chris Taylor started in center field for the Dodgers.
NATIONALS: Right fielder Juan Soto went on the 10-day injured list with a strained left shoulder on Tuesday, the latest setback for the 2019 World Series champions.
Soto, the reigning NL batting champion, originally was listed in Washington’s starting lineup facing the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night.
But less than an hour before the game’s scheduled first pitch, the Nationals tweeted the move. The club also said that outfielder Yadiel Hernandez was being recalled from its alternate training site.
Soto is batting .300 with two homers and eight RBI this season.
METS: New York tweaked its rotation before their series against the Chicago Cubs, giving ace right-hander Jacob deGrom an extra day of rest.
The 32-year-old deGrom was slated to start Thursday at Wrigley Field, but the two-time NL Cy Young Award winner was moved back to Friday’s home game against the Washington Nationals.
The change puts Joey Lucchesi back on regular rest after the left-hander threw 55 pitches while working three innings during New York’s 7-2 loss at Colorado in the second game of a doubleheader on Saturday.
TWINS: Right fielder Max Kepler is among the club’s positive cases for the coronavirus.
Manager Rocco Baldelli announced Kepler’s absence with COVID-19 ahead of a doubleheader against the Athletics. The scheduled opener of the series Monday was postponed, as were the Twins’ final two games against the Angels in Anaheim over the weekend, because of the outbreak on the team.
PHILLIES: Infielder Neil Walker announced his retirement at age 35 after 12 major league seasons.
Walker hit .231 with no homers and three RBI in 18 games with Philadelphia this year.
“Officially retired,” he wrote on Twitter. “Thank you to everyone that helped me in my journey to live out my childhood dream of being a major leaguer. I loved & cherished every day.”
Walker hit .267 with 149 homers and 60 RBI for Pittsburgh, the New York Mets, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Miami and the New York Yankees.
Primarily a second baseman but also an occasional first baseman and third baseman, he had 12 homers and a career-best 83 RBI for the Pirates in 2011, and reached his career high of 23 homers in both 2014 and 2016.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.