Rafael Furcal was finally looking like he was close to returning to the Dodgers. But, it's just not meant to be at this point. While rehabbing with Triple-A Las Vegas, his nagging back injury has flared up once again, and he has now been sent back to Los Angeles for medical evaluation.
Obviously, this is not at all good news for a few reasons. The biggest one is that the team is lost without him for the most part. He was an early MVP candidate at the start of the year, and the Dodgers were playing pretty well. Take him out of the equation, and the Dodgers' offense has been on life support. It's been ugly. No matter who they plug in at shortstop (Chin-lung Hu, Luis Maza, Angel Berroa), their production is a joke compared to him.
The other reason is that this is his contract year, and he may very well be seeing those dollar signs appear less and less as the weeks go by. The Dodgers have a bad recent history of signing damaged goods to big contracts, with Jason Schmidt and Nomar Garciaparra being the best examples. Even if a healthy Furcal is great, is it worth the risk? He's not getting younger, and he's had some bad injuries the last couple of years. I love the guy, but even I wouldn't blame the team for passing on a big extension.
Let's hope this is just a temporary setback, and that he'll be fine. I won't be holding my breath, though...
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