Dodgers: Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman Set the Standard for Durability
The Dodgers haven’t had a player play in all 162 games since Cody Bellinger in 2018, and Bellinger only started 135 of those games. They haven’t had a player start every game of a season since Eric Karros in 1997.
But 113 games into the 2022 season, both Freddie Freeman and Trea Turner have started every single game.
This is game 113 for #Dodgers today. Freddie Freeman and Trea Turner have started all 113.
Freeman "My job is to play baseball, if there is a baseball game I'm going to do it…I take a lot of pride in getting myself ready to play everyday and so does Trea."
— David Vassegh (@THEREAL_DV) August 14, 2022
Dave Roberts said last week that Freeman wants to start every game at least until the Dodgers clinch the division. Turner presumably feels the same way. Both have gotten some time off — Freddie has exited a game early nine times this season, and Trea has had 11 early exits — but there’s a difference between a few innings and an entire game. Roberts likes to give occasionally give players a “spa day,” a day they know for sure they have the whole day off.
This durability is nothing new to Freeman, who has played 162 games in a season twice and also played all 60 games in the shortened 2020 season. This season seems sure to be the eighth time Freeman plays in at least 96 percent of his team’s games. When Freddie is healthy, he wants to be on the field.
Turner’s story has some similarities, but he has had more injuries through his career than Freeman. Last year, Turner missed ten days with Covid around the trade deadline and four games with a jammed finger in early July; other than that, he had just one day off. Trea played all 162 games in 2018 and 59 of 60 games in 2020, but those are his only full seasons. He missed 40 games in 2019, and that’s the only other season he has topped 100 games played.
The Dodgers are likely to have a bye in the first round of the postseason, so it wouldn’t be shocking if both Trea and Freddie chose to keep playing every day even after the division is clinched, knowing they’ll get a few days off before the playoffs start. After going 25 years without a player starting every game, it would be pretty fun to have two guys do it this year.
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