It's hard to feel too much sympathy for Los Angeles Dodgers fans these days, with a roster so deep and talented (and, of course, expensive) that it could weather a rotation's worth of pitching injuries and still sit atop the NL West. But they really did seem to have a point when it came to the team's top prospect, Dalton Rushing.
The 2022 second-round pick seemed to have conquered the Minors by the end of last season, with a .273/.396/.511 slash line over 37 games at Triple-A. And yet, the Dodgers sent him back there to start 2025, where he ... promptly got even better, posting a .938 OPS. It was clear to everyone that he had nothing to prove, and yet a promotion never came.
Until Wednesday, that is, when word broke that L.A. had finally given Rushing the call to the Majors.
The Dodgers are calling up prized catching prospect Dalton Rushing, sources tell The Athletic.
— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) May 14, 2025
Rushing will join the team on Wednesday for its game against the Athletics, although it's unclear whether he'll be in the starting lineup. He should be, though, if only to help the team make up for lost time.
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Dodgers spent too long letting Dalton Rushing language in the Minors
At first, the Dodgers taking it slow with Rushing made sense. Drafted as a catcher out of Louisville, he was blocked at his primary position by Will Smith, an All-Star who wasn't going anywhere after signing a 10-year, $140 million deal ahead of the 2024 season. With Shohei Ohtani occupying DH, that didn't leave a ton of room.
Rushing quickly proved versatile enough, though, handling left field reasonably well when given the chance in the Minors. And his bat simply never cooled off: It's the biggest reason he's MLB Pipeline's No. 15 overall prospect, with a rare combination of hit and power and more athleticism than you'd expect from someone who came up as a catcher.
Despite the fact that they clearly eyed Rushing as an option in the outfield, the Dodgers refused to give him a shot at the big-league level. Even when Teoscar Hernandez went down with a hamstring injury at the beginning of May, the team opted for guys like Kiké Hernandez, James Outman and Chris Taylor instead of their highly touted youngster. But now, finally, they seem to have seen the light, and now the hope is that they'll stay out of the way and give Rushing some runway to settle in with regular at-bats.
Because really, there's no excuse not to, especially not with both Hernandez and Tommy Edman currently on the IL. Pages has been promising after a bumpy rookie year, and Michael Conforto has seemingly started to snap out of his early funk, but L.A. doesn't have enough depth here to keep Rushing as a part-time player. At the very least, he figures to be in the lineup daily against righties, flanked by Pages and Conforto. And if he can hit the ground running, one of the league's deepest lineups just got even deeper.