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Dalton Rushing’s UCL Tear Catches the Dodgers at a Tough Time

| 5 min read
Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

Adley Rutschman and Liam Hicks were hardly the only catchers dealt to contenders in the hours before last Monday’s trade deadline. Much further below the radar, the Dodgers acquired — re-acquired, actually — not one but two backstops, namely Ben Rortvedt and Hunter Feduccia, and their reasoning soon became clear. Dalton Rushing, who had been scratched from their lineup on August 2 due to “minor arm irritation,” landed on the injured list the next day with what the Dodgers initially termed a mild right elbow sprain. On August 4, the team revealed that the 25-year-old Rushing had suffered a partial tear of his right ulnar collateral ligament.

The injury hit the Dodgers almost exactly two months after they lost starting catcher Will Smith to the IL due to an inflamed disc in his neck. He has yet to return, and while Rushing’s UCL tear may not require surgery, it will likely prevent him from catching again during what has been something of a breakout season — albeit an uneven one.

“I would say it’s very small. I hope I’m wrong,” said manager Dave Roberts last Wednesday, referring to the likelihood of Rushing returning to his catching duties this season. He added that the Dodgers are “certainly trying to keep the bat alive for sure.” Shohei Ohtani’s occupation of the designated hitter slot would likely limit Rushing to pinch-hitting, ideally against righties, a potential luxury that the Dodgers will have to weigh against rostering a healthier and more versatile reserve such as Hyeseong Kim, who can play both middle infield positions and center field while being fast enough to serve as a pinch-runner. The current prognosis is for Rushing to be shut down from throwing for four to six weeks, though he’s expected to start a hitting progression sooner.

After breaking in with the Dodgers last season, ousting longtime backup Austin Barnes and serving as Smith’s understudy, Rushing has been thrust into a larger role this year thanks to the combination of his improved offense, Ohtani’s occasional pitching-only days, and most of all, Smith’s neck woes. Fresh off a stellar offensive season capped by his World Series Game 7-winning home run, the 31-year-old Smith started 44 of the Dodgers’ first 64 games behind the plate, but hit a comparatively light .249/.338/.382 (102 wRC+) with six home runs before landing on the IL retroactive to June 8. He’s been sidelined for much longer than expected, and longer than at any other point in his eight-year major league career.

Smith first resumed hitting in the cage and throwing in early July, but during the All-Star break, the Dodgers shut him down, as his neck continued to bother him while the intensity of his workouts ramped up, and soon afterwards, the team transferred him to the 60-Day IL. By July 28, Smith had resumed baseball activities, and a few days later, Roberts said the catcher would need three to four weeks before returning, including a rehab assignment. On Monday, Roberts said that Smith could take batting practice on the field sometime this week.

Even before Smith went down, Rushing’s play generated a lot more attention than that of the average backup catcher; indeed, his season has been anything but dull. From April 5 through April 20, he homered seven times despite starting just six of the team’s 14 games and coming off the bench in another; that span included multi-homer games against the Blue Jays in Toronto on April 6, and against the Rockies in Colorado on April 20. Around that time, he started making some less flattering headlines as well. On April 18, after the Rockies connected for three straight hits against reliever Will Klein, Rushing suggested that the team — which had (and still has) one of the majors’ weakest offenses — was stealing signs, saying, “I think it’s odd that some of those hitters that do what they do, they go up there and they’re on the first pitch that was thrown. It’s a little fishy, but I’ll wear it.”

Roberts shot down the notion that anything untoward was going on, telling reporters, “I saw some bad breaking balls. So, I don’t think there was anything fishy behind it. I think there were some bad pitches.”

That incident was still fresh in the public’s mind when on April 21, Rushing tagged out the Giants’ Jung Hoo Lee on an inning-ending play at the plate. As a shaken-up Lee remained down, Rushing, who was walking to the Dodgers dugout, glanced back towards the plate and appeared to say “f*** ’em,” as if indifferent to a possible injury.

Lee left the game a couple innings later, and clips of the play went viral, though both he and Giants manager Tony Vitello downplayed the severity of the outfielder’s injury. “I banged up my quad in Washington, and just banged it up again today,” Lee said through an interpreter afterwards.

Rushing denied saying anything directed towards Lee. “Hopefully he didn’t take it the way it was put out,” he said, referring to the circulating replays and adding, “I’ll be sure to say something to him face-to-face tomorrow, making sure he’s OK.” Rushing also said he asked Kim, Lee’s teammate on Korea’s World Baseball Classic team, to check in as well.

Even if Lee was all right, bad blood lingered. On April 23, the Giants’ Logan Webb hit Rushing in the ribs with a 93-mph fastball in a move that the Dodgers interpreted as retaliatory. When Kim followed by hitting a potential double play grounder to second baseman Luis Arraez, Rushing slid so far out of the basepath to take out shortstop Willy Adames that he was called out for interference.

Whatever lessons there were to be absorbed from the Giants-related controversy failed to stick. Four days after the Lee incident, Rushing was caught on camera apparently calling Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya “a fat f***” after he advanced on a wild pitch; Nico Hoerner, who was at-bat at the time, confirmed what the lip-readers saw and added that he regretted not confronting Rushing more directly at the time. On June 9, Rushing was again ruled out for interference with another out-of-the-basepaths slide against the Pirates, but his biggest controversy was still a couple of weeks away.

On June 24, Rushing clashed with Ohtani while catching his start against the Twins and experienced something of an in-game meltdown. In the first inning, on a 1-0 pitch to Kody Clemens, Rushing ignored Ohtani motioning for him to challenge a called ball; Clemens ended up walking. After Ohtani allowed singles to three of the first four batters in the bottom of the second inning, he and Rushing couldn’t get on the same page while facing Ryan Kreidler. Expecting an off-speed pitch to start the at-bat, Rushing instead allowed a run-scoring passed ball on a 101.7-mph fastball. Then on a 1-1 count, Ohtani threw a sweeper that was called a ball. He challenged the call — the only time he’s initiated a challenge from the mound so far, and a correct decision in this instance — as the catcher shook his head in defiance.

Rushing’s frustrations — which included going 0-for-4 at the plate with three strikeouts and a helmet broken in frustration — spilled over to the point that teammate Freddie Freeman, pitching coach Mark Prior, mental skills coach Brent Walker and Roberts all had to console him between innings. Taking matters into his own hands, Ohtani called his own game after the second inning, holding the Twins scoreless for four frames in what became a 4-3 win. Afterwards, Rushing took responsibility for the miscommunication with Ohtani, calling his performance both behind the plate and at it “pretty embarrassing.”

In the wake of that rough day and the various controversies in which Rushing had become embroiled, Freeman spoke positively of his younger teammate:

“Everyone here loves Dalton Rushing,” Freeman said. “The person he is in the clubhouse, before games, after games, doesn’t get to be shown on the field. But there’s that three-hour window where his emotions come forward, and it can be a lot.

“I wish people could see the Dalton Rushing inside the clubhouse, on the plane, on buses. It’s not what you see during the game. He’s a young guy who’s learning the starting role, who wants to be great, who is just learning, and we’re here to help, and that’s why you see so many people trying to help him.”

Rushing’s play has been largely — but not entirely — incident-free since then, though he only caught Ohtani once more before the two-way superstar was shut down from pitching due to inflammation in his left knee. Overall, he has hit .253/.335/.475 with 12 homers and a 123 wRC+, which ranks seventh among primary catchers with at least 200 plate appearances. That’s a vast improvement on last year’s .204/.258/.324 (62 wRC+), particularly with Rushing cutting his strikeout rate from 37.4% to 28.6% while maintaining good quality of contact. He’s managed just an 85 wRC+ against lefties, however, with one homer in 66 plate appearances, and his defense has lagged behind his offense. In 472.1 innings, he’s 3.7 runs below average according to FanGraphs’ pitch framing metric, with -4 FRV according to Statcast (including -3 runs for framing) and -7 DRS. But even with his ups and down and his burgeoning notoriety, his play has been a net positive, and he’s already proven tough to replace.

With Smith out, the Dodgers first cycled through a couple of backups in 31-year-old journeyman Chuckie Robinson and 26-year-old rookie Eliezer Alfonzo. Robinson, who previously played for the Reds and White Sox and played one game for the Dodgers last year, went 2-for-23 in eight games spread out over two stints, after which he was outrighted off the 40-man roster and accepted assignments to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Alfonzo, whose father caught for the Giants, Padres, Mariners, and Rockies during a six-year major league career (2006–11), went 5-for-27 in 12 games during his four weeks with the team before being optioned to Oklahoma City last Tuesday. He and Robinson have combined to take 53 plate appearances without a walk.

Enter Feduccia and Rortvedt, both of whom have passed this way before — and who crossed paths themselves last summer. Feduccia, a lefty-swinging 29-year-old, was drafted by the Dodgers in the 12th round out of Louisiana State University in 2018, but played just seven games for the team before being traded on July 31, 2025, with five spread out over three stints in 2024, and then two in April of last season. The deadline day deal that sent him to Tampa Bay in exchange for Rortvedt and pitchers Paul Gervase and Adam Serwinowski was a move the Dodgers made so they could park their third-string catcher outside the 40-man roster, at least temporarily.

Feduccia hit a dreadful .151/.265/.209 (39 wRC+) in 102 plate appearances for the Rays last year, but improved to a .234/.306/.340 line (83 wRC+) with two homers in 160 plate appearances this year while sharing time behind the plate with Nick Fortes. The Dodgers reacquired him last week in a deal that also brought over righty Jacob Kmatz in exchange for outfielder Jack Suwinski and $250,000 in international bonus pool money. He’s started four times and come off the bench twice since being reacquired, going 3-for-11 with a double.

Rortvedt, a lefty-swinging 28-year-old known for his absolutely massive biceps, spent time with the Twins (who drafted him in the second round out of a Wisconsin high school way back in 2016), Yankees, and Rays before being acquired by the Dodgers in the 2025 Feduccia trade. Los Angeles called upon him last September after Smith suffered a hairline fracture in his right hand; he caught 18 regular season games for the team, hitting .224/.309/.327 (83 wRC+), and then caught both Wild Card Series games against the Reds, going 3-for-6 with an RBI single and a double. He started the first two Division Series games against the Phillies as well, departing in favor of Smith when his spot in the order came up for the second time. From the sixth inning of Division Series Game 2 through the end of the World Series, Smith caught every postseason inning, including both 11-inning games (Division Series Game 4 and World Series Game 7) and the 18-inning World Series Game 3.

The Dodgers signed Rortvedt to a one-year, $1.25 million deal in November, hoping his salary would prevent him from being claimed on waivers after they outrighted him off the roster. It didn’t dissuade the Reds from claiming him, though they then designated him for assignment in early February so as to add free agent Eugenio Suárez. The Dodgers re-claimed him, but less than a week later DFA’d him in order to re-sign Evan Phillips, at which point the Mets claimed him. New York outrighted him off the 40-man roster at the end of spring training, and he spent the first four months of the season with Triple-A Syracuse, hitting .234/.319/.414 (86 wRC+) before being traded to the Dodgers for righty Chayce McDermott. Since being reacquired, he’s made two starts and come off the bench twice while totaling just four plate appearances.

The revolving door of catchers has coincided with the Dodgers’ latest slide, even as they added Tarik Skubal at the deadline. The team lost a season-high seven in a row from July 31 through August 7 against the Red Sox, Cubs, and Diamondbacks, and after snapping that streak with a win in Arizona on Saturday, they lost again on Sunday, then overcame a 3-0 deficit in Skubal’s home debut to defeat the Royals on Monday. Since the calendar flipped to August, the Dodgers have been outscored 47-31, hitting just .252/.302/.377 (87 wRC+) while being held to two runs or fewer in five of nine games, and serving up a 5.25 ERA and 5.95 FIP while allowing five or more runs five times as well.

Neither Feduccia nor Rortvedt — who respectively own a career wRC+ of 70 and 62 — are particularly well-equipped to boost the offense, and while they’re both solid-or-better defenders, building a relationship with a pitching staff takes time. The Dodgers (71-48) lead the NL West by 7.5 games, but they’re three games behind the NL Central-leading Brewers (74-45) and tied with the NL East-leading Braves, putting them in danger of having to play another Wild Card Series instead of drawing a first-round bye, just as they did last year. Their offense and pitching will likely rebound, but until they at least get Smith back, their road to October could be a bumpy one.

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