Kiké Hernández details what he played through in 2025 ahead of Dodgers return

LOS ANGELES — Kiké Hernández wanted to provide proof, so he called Andrew Friedman this November. Hernández was still loopy from the drugs after left elbow surgery, so he had Dr. Neal ElAttrache speak for him. Hernández and the Los Angeles Dodgers had known something was wrong for a while. Each time he got into his batting stance felt like “a blow torch” was being put to his left elbow, Hernández said. He was still surprised when he learned the extent of what he was playing through during the Dodgers’ World Series run.

So the then-free agent called the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations.

“I woke up with ElAttrache telling me, ‘This was the worst injury I’ve ever seen of this kind, and I don’t know how you played,’” Hernández recalled Monday. “I told him, ‘Thank you. I take it as a compliment.’ And I FaceTimed Andrew right then and there, and I told him, “ElAttrache, tell him what you just said,’ and I was like, ‘I did this for you, so you better bring me back.’”

Hernández is indeed back. He doubled home Hyeseong Kim in his first plate appearance of 2026, opening the scoring against Tanner Gordon and the Colorado Rockies in the third inning. He returned to the Dodgers lineup on Monday, ahead of schedule after undergoing surgery that reattached muscle to the bone in his left elbow. He’d endured the pain since May 28, 2025, when he first injured the elbow scoring on a wild pitch against the Cleveland Guardians.

First, the longtime fan favorite tried playing through the discomfort. Hernández wouldn’t go on the injured list for another month, when he watched his swing back on an iPad and saw how much he’d struggled while playing hurt.

“I saw that they put up a stat saying the last 30 games or so, I was hitting like .080,” Hernández said. He collected eight hits in 59 at-bats (.136) between him suffering the injury and going on the injured list on July 7. Even when he returned, he hit 14-for-63 (.222) the rest of the way while still playing through pain.

“I don’t think anyone appreciated how severe the injury was,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He was not going to come out of the lineup and gave himself every opportunity to play with the pain that he was going through. That’s kind of what makes him special.”

Hernández has carved out a unique place for himself in this generation of Dodgers baseball. He is the role player whose goofiness endeared him to a fan base before leaving in free agency after finally winning it all in 2020. Upon his return via trade in 2023, he resumed some of his October heroics, finding a way to insert himself into the biggest moments of the franchise’s golden era.

He is not the best player the Dodgers have produced during this time. But he might be one of the first who people will remember. Wearing a banana costume in the dugout and winning three World Series rings will do that. It’s part of why Hernández was so touched when he returned in 2023, and why his annual return has never had much suspense to it. Hernández has embraced Los Angeles.

“I’m very aware of that, and I feel like it’s a responsibility with the city,” Hernández said. “And not only in terms of just (being) a player, but to me, doing that as a Latino is very important, especially in the city, where it’s such a big Latino community. We’re living in some rough times, especially in this city the last few years. It’s been a lot of weird things going on. So I take the responsibility to not only represent this organization, but the Latino community, Puerto Rico community, and all that.

“It’s something that’s very touching to my heart, and I’m aware of, but I don’t really give it that much thought.”

Consider last year to be another chapter in a rich text that has been Hernández’s time in Los Angeles.

Hernández received seven different injections into the elbow to try to stave off the pain. It wasn’t until Dr. ElAttrache took a needle to Hernández’s bone to get it to bleed that they were able to successfully numb the area. That got Hernández onto the field. The relief lasted until the National League Championship Series, when Hernández unsuccessfully dove for what would become a Caleb Durbin triple in Game 3 against the Milwaukee Brewers.

“The rest of the way was pretty rough, as we all saw,” Hernández said.

While a pain-ridden Hernández did not supply his typical postseason heroics at the plate, he made his impact with his glove. He started a pivotal double play in the pennant-clinching Game 4 against the Brewers, then was on the front end of another double play in the World Series, catching and throwing a ball that ended Game 6 against the Toronto Blue Jays and kept the Dodgers’ title hopes alive.

The organization’s clear trust in him was reflected in the fact that he was even there at all. That continued when the Dodgers gave him $4.5 million to return this season in spite of a .621 OPS in 2025 that was his lowest since 2016 (.607). It helps that Hernández returned far sooner than expected; he wasn’t expecting to play in the first half at all before he picked up a bat in spring training and didn’t feel any pain. Every step in his rehab has been smooth after that.

Hernández is here to serve a role he’s filled throughout his time in Los Angeles. He will start against left-handed pitching and bounce around the diamond. When there’s an opening, as there was Monday with Max Muncy nursing a sore wrist, Hernández will fill in. The Dodgers signed Santiago Espinal to serve as Hernández’s fill-in for essentially the same purpose, though Hernández will play more than the 26 times Espinal did through the Dodgers’ first 53 games.

Espinal was designated for assignment to clear a spot for Hernández, with the Dodgers acknowledging a redundancy; Espinal was cut before all the guarantees were fulfilled in his $2.5 million contract, a league source said.

Hernández isn’t exclusively in the lineup for his production. He is a presence in a way not many are with a career .707 OPS.

“I’m in charge of checking guys,” Hernández said. “That’s something that, I didn’t necessarily have to do that in the past.”

In 2024, that meant boosting the spirits of Yoshinobu Yamamoto after a disastrous first career postseason start. In 2025, it was inspiring Miguel Rojas to keep going when the veteran infielder thought he might get cut. Hernández’s presence in the room is appreciated. He can be on both ends of a joke. He can also be the voice of reason.

“If I F with you, that means I F with you,” Hernández said. “But some things haven’t changed. I’m still the clown in the clubhouse.”