Corey Seager will miss NLCS with back sprain, but Dodgers roll on

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers suffered a big blow on Saturday, with shortstop Corey Seager left off their roster for the National League Championship Series with a back sprain. But they responded with a Game 1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Saturday night that in many ways typified their season.

Seager suffered the back injury on a routine slide in the first inning of Game 3 of the Dodgers’ NL Division Series sweep over the Arizona Diamondbacks. At the time, he didn’t think much of it, and was able to finish out the game. But the next day, his back worsened, and an MRI revealed the sprain.

“This sucks, to be honest,” Seager said. “Obviously you try to be as positive and inspirational, whatever you want to say, to help your team right now. But just basically trying not to be a distraction right now.”

Seager is anything but a distraction. He is arguably the Dodgers’ most irreplaceable player. He won NL Rookie of the Year in 2016 and finished third in MVP voting, then followed that up by hitting .295/.375/.479 with 22 home runs and 33 doubles in 2017, his second full season.

His replacement in Game 1 of the NLCS was Charlie Culberson, who had all of 15 plate appearances in the majors this season after spending the bulk of the year in Triple-A. The 28-year-old journeyman drove in the tying run in the fifth inning against the Cubs on Saturday, then doubled and scored an insurance run in the seventh.

“We trust Charlie,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He’s a part of what we’re doing right now, and he’s a heck of a baseball player.”

It has been par for the course for the Dodgers, who won 104 games this season thanks in large part to one of the deepest rosters they have ever had.

Clayton Kershaw, their ace, missed five weeks with back tightness in July and August, and the team barely missed a beat, winning 23 of 33 games in his absence.

“Obviously, it’s a big blow,” said Dodgers pitcher Rich Hill, who will start Game 2 on Sunday. “[Seager has] fought with us the entire year. It’s just an unfortunate thing that happens, obviously, in sports when you get an injury.

“I think it’s going to be one of those things where we don’t know where the next guy’s going to come from that’s going to be, you know, supposedly the hero of a game or however you want to put it. But you can definitely kind of see that story line building, I guess.”

The Dodgers are 4-0 so far this postseason, now three wins away from their first trip to the World Series since 1988. Should they get that far, Seager is questionable to return.

Seager hasn’t been cleared yet by the medical staff to run or hit, and he won’t travel with the team to Chicago for Games 3-5 of the NLCS, instead remaining in Los Angeles to receive treatment for his back.

“Next week is going to be kind of a big week to see if I can get back into baseball activities and stuff,” Seager said. “I’m progressing every day, which is really nice. But I’m not really sure.”