LA likely without Seager till after All-Star break

LOS ANGELES -- Everybody wants to know when Corey Seager will be back in the Dodgers lineup. He just wants his leg to stop hurting.

“It’s still pretty sore,” Seager said on Thursday after being placed on the 10-day injured list with a left hamstring strain. “Similar to how I was the other night.”

The Dodgers activated Matt Beaty and wouldn’t offer a timetable for Seager’s return, but the best guess is a month from now, coming out of the All-Star break. Until then, manager Dave Roberts said Seager will be replaced at shortstop by Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernandez. Roberts said an MRI exam confirmed a Grade 1 to Grade 2 strain.

It’s the same hamstring Seager said he tore in 2013, his first full professional season. That time, he missed 3 1/2 weeks. He’s focused now on treatment, “modalities,” reducing swelling and easing pain. Baseball will resume eventually.

“Corey’s sore right now,” said Roberts. “When I listen to Corey, he’s still sore. Right now we’re just trying to calm things down.”

Seager suffered this injury in the ninth inning of his 11th consecutive start on Tuesday night in Anaheim, trying to score from second base on Alex Verdugo’s single. It was Seager’s fourth time on the bases that warm night, which included a pair of 100-yard dashes on defense when he was covering two positions in a shift. It happened as he was about to round third and head for home, but he pulled up a step past third.

“It hurt pretty good,” he said. “It kind of caught very quickly. The worse part about these, it’s hard to put a timetable on it. It could feel good tomorrow and it gets quicker, or it could linger for a while. Just kind of a waiting game.”

Seager wouldn’t speculate on whether the heavy workload that night led to a fatigue injury, only that he didn’t feel it coming on.

“That’s one of the things that bothered me the most, ninth inning, I was ready,” said Seager, who led off the ninth and never even sat down after coming in from the infield. “Not like it was early in the game and you’re not fully stretched. I was totally fine, totally stretched. Nothing was even bothering me. Kind of an unfortunate event.”

Especially with Seager just heating up offensively after starting slow coming off last year’s elbow and hip operations.

“I thought we had done a really good job taking time, easing into things, being ready to get back on the field every day,” he said. “It kinda sucks. Really bummed. Just getting comfortable with the swing again. Something I’ve got to get through. Long road last year, feeling good and healthy, to take a blow like this, it hurts.”