It started as a routine pop-up.
It ended in a frightening –– but, as of now, benign –– scene.
In the top of the eighth inning on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, first baseman Freddie Freeman was tracking a pop fly in foul ground when he lost his footing at the edge of the visiting dugout and went tumbling straight down a flight of stairs.
He was forced to leave the game early, but was hopeful he had come away with only general body soreness.
“I haven’t really seen the replay yet, but I went to lean, like I was gonna lean against the rail to catch the ball, and obviously there was no rail,” Freeman said afterward. “It was an opening.”
Immediately, concern descended from all parts of the ballpark as the 36-year-old disappeared from sight.
Several of Freeman’s Dodgers teammates came racing over to his aid. Several more Kansas City Royals players also leapt off the bench to check on the former MVP.
For several moments, with Freeman sprawled on the ground beneath the concrete overhang, the entirety of the crowd also seemed to be holding its collective breath.
“It’s definitely scary,” shortstop Mookie Betts said. “Anybody going down like that is.”
The good news: Freeman had fallen in a strangely fortunate spot.
He didn’t hit any of the steps coming down, instead flying straight onto a rubber landing behind the camera well in the first-base dugout. Beyond that, just as importantly, was another set of stairs that led further down to the clubhouse. While Freeman landed with a thud on his right side, his head avoided what could have been a violent collision with the ground.
“I think that’s what kind of saved me,” Freeman said. “I landed on that, and that’s what gave leeway for my head.”
Thus, Freeman finally got back to his feet and re-emerged on the field –– getting seranded with chants of “Fredd-ie! Fredd-ie!” as he returned to his position and played out the rest of the inning.
“I am sore,” he said. “Kneecaps are sore, shoulder is sore, hand is sore, wrist is sore. I mean, I fell. But I’m in good spirits. I’ve already cold-tubbed. I’ve done everything I needed to do to put myself in a position to be able to hopefully play tomorrow.”
That did not mean Freeman finished Wednesday’s game, getting pinch-hit for in the next half-inning of the Dodgers’ eventual sweep-clinching 4-2 win.
“When the adrenaline started to wear off, I kind of motioned in [to the dugout] like, ‘Hey guys, you guys might need to hit for me. It’s getting sore,’” Freeman said.
Upon his exit, however, Freeman felt confident he hadn’t suffered anything more than “total body soreness,” as manager Dave Roberts put it.
“I didn’t hit my head, so that was the key part,” he said.
The veteran slugger didn’t even undergo X-rays, only laughing about the exchange in which head trainer Thomas Albert had asked him.
“Thomas asked if I needed an X-ray, and I said, ‘Do you want to do a whole-body X-ray?’” Freeman quipped. “He was like, ‘We can.’ But no, I’m OK.”
Freeman’s fall came at the end of an otherwise encouraging night at Chavez Ravine.
The Dodgers got home runs from Mookie Betts (who is heating up again, hitting 11-for-26 over the last week), Shohei Ohtani (on a go-ahead two-run blast in the third) and Hunter Feduccia (his first since being reacquired by the team at the trade deadline).
They got nine combined innings out of Eric Lauer (6 ⅓ innings, 2 runs, 1 earned) and Landon Knack (2 ⅔ scoreless on a night the bullpen was thin and he was called up from triple-A).
And after entering this homestand in a 1-8 tailspin, they leveled out their form with a narrow three-game sweep.
“Just a great sweep when we needed it,” Freeman said.
And one, the hope remains, that didn’t come at the cost of a freak injury to a star player in the dugout.
