Time for Dodgers to sit Yasmani Grandal and hope time is a healer

OK, so I wrote this a week ago. It’s not like the issue went away. If anything, it’s become more troubling.

Yasmani Grandal is hurting. I don’t care what he or Manager Don Mattingly say, he’s hurting. Players -- particularly catchers -- always say they’re OK; it’s the manly, professional thing to do. Well, they almost always say it. Grandal admitted shortly after taking a nasty foul ball off his left, non-throwing shoulder in Philadelphia Aug. 6 that it left him with pain radiating all over his left shoulder, back and side.

Since then he’s gone three for 55. That says he’s hurting. He is hitless in his last 33 at-bats. That says he is really hurting.

It’s time to sit him. Indeed, the Dodgers could be running out of time to rest him. I get he was an All-Star catcher and the Dodgers are a better team when he’s performing like he did in the first half of the season. But he’s not and it’s Sept. 7. There’s little reason to believe if the Dodgers keep sending him out there, the shoulder is going to magically heal.

The Dodgers naturally want some facsimile of the Grandal they had the first four months of the season in the playoffs. Is it not better to rest him now, cross a few fingers and hope he can round back into form at the end of the regular season?

Plus, this all coincides with the offensive rebirth of catcher A.J. Ellis. The Dodgers actually have a practical alternative. Since July 8, Ellis has a .327/.448/.582 slash line. But in those two months, he’s started only 15 games.

You could argue there’s a connection to his improved offense and lightened workload, but it was the same routine the first three months of the season, and he was hitting .171 at the end of the June.

Grandal is trying his best, but it’s almost painful to watch him right now. You wonder if every swing doesn’t cause some pain. At the least, it has to have robbed him of some power and bat quickness.

Rest and hope for the best. Because 0 for 33 says the current plan is not working.