Dodgers' Dave Roberts Has Cryptic Response Amid Edwin Diaz Injury Concern

While the Los Angeles Dodgers are off to a strong 11-4 start this season, the team is also dealing with a bit of a concern regarding closer Edwin Díaz.

Díaz has seen a major drop in his velocity this season, which has prompted some questions for the 32-year-old multi-time All-Star.

Through his first six appearances with Los Angeles, Díaz is averaging 95.8 mph on his fastball, which is a decline from the 97.2 mph he saw last season. This has now raised the question of whether the closer is healthy, despite both Díaz and the Dodgers saying that he is.

Díaz didn't make an appearance in the Dodgers' finale against the Texas Rangers over the weekend, with Los Angeles losing the game 5-2. But manager Dave Roberts provided a strange response after the game on whether the closer would have been available if the Dodgers were in a situation to use him.

“I don’t know,” Roberts said. “I’m gonna keep that one to myself.”

Roberts and Díaz have maintained that the closer is healthy. Roberts, of course, is just basing it off of what he's hearing.

“Everything I hear, [he says] that he feels fine,” Roberts said. “I think for me, you hear it, you want to completely trust it. But then you’re also looking at the [radar] gun and making sure. We’re sort of trying to dig in a little bit. But I think that, you know, two miles an hour, that’s pretty significant.”

Díaz has pushed back on this narrative, saying that as he has gotten older, it has taken him longer to see an uptick in his velocity numbers.

Over the last few seasons since he tore his patellar tendon in 2023, Díaz's velocity numbers have increased as the year has progressed.

Here are the fastball numbers from the last few seasons for Díaz:

April 2024: 96.9 mph
End of the 2024 season: 97.5 mph

April 2025: 96.3 mph
End of the 2025 season: 97.2 mph

Assuming that this trend continues for Díaz, the Dodgers may not have anything to worry about. But for now, the team will make sure that he is healthy, especially considering how important he is to this team.

Díaz is the closer of this group after signing a three-year, $69 million deal with Los Angeles over the offseason. The Dodgers wanted to shore up the bullpen after dealing with all sorts of problems last year, and the hope is that the right-hander will do just that.

“Players want to play,” Roberts said. “They want to perform. Sometimes they’re their worst enemy. I think that’s another reason why we’re kind of just, again, treading lightly is the word I’m using. Because you’ve got to respect that they want to be out there. But then we all kind of end up with the short straw if the player goes down.”

So far this season, Díaz has registered an ERA of 6.00 over his six appearances. The right-hander has recorded four saves, while accruing his first blown save on Friday — which is the last time he pitched.

The Dodgers welcome Díaz's former team, the New York Mets, into town for a three-game series this week. It remains to be seen if Díaz will be available to pitch.