Garciaparra returns to former stomping grounds to aid Dodgers

Nomar Garciaparra has played in just 15 games this season after suffering his latest in a series of injuries. Chris Williams/Icon SMI Jonah Freedman's Mailbag Submit a comment or question for Jonah. Name: Email: Hometown: Question: SEND Follow Jonah Freedman on Twitter

It wasn't that long ago that Nomar Garciaparra was one of baseball's premier players at the most important position on the field, a mega-star on and off the diamond, and the biggest fan favorite at Fenway Park for Red Sox teams that regularly advanced to October.

But those days seem very far away when faced with his current reality: a temporary solution at shortstop (a position he hasn't played in almost three years) for an injury-ravaged team under .500 (and yet tied for first) and in a town where he barely qualifies as a star. Still, Garciaparra, a 13-year veteran now in his third year with the Dodgers, is merely happy to be healthy again after missing large parts of the past four seasons due to his various injuries, including all but 15 games this year.

With All-Star Week fast approaching, it's almost hard to remember that, when he was healthy, Nomar was a perennial presence in the Midsummer Classic. He has six All-Star appearances under his belt and was one of the most feared hitters in the game, including back-to-back AL batting titles in 1999 and 2000. Not to mention how good a shortstop he once was -- does anyone even utter the phrase "Holy Trinity" anymore?

Of course, that was before the injuries started setting in. Nomar missed much of 2001 with a wrist injury, and starting in '04, never appeared in more than 122 games a season thanks to a litany of other injuries: groin tears, oblique strains, knee knocks, cracked bones in his hand, calf strains ... the list goes on. (Garciaparra now says his slowness to heal is due to a recently uncovered "genetic predisposition.")

Those injuries have left Garciaparra as the most glorified utility infielder in the game. He's now being called upon to boost the playoff chances of the Dodgers. Less than week after returning from a calf injury that kept him on the disabled list from mid-April until early July, Nomar has stepped back into his old position for the first time since 2005 to fill in for injured Rafael Furcal.

Those are pretty big shoes to fill. Furcal had been the only consistent hitter in the Dodgers lineup (.366) before a ruptured disc in his back landed him on the DL for at least two months. And while Nomar can still hit the ball and has excellent plate discipline, he hasn't hit anywhere near that level in eight years. His durability has become his albatross.

Still, so far, so good. Since returning to the lineup last Friday in San Francisco, Garciaparra has appeared in all six of the Dodgers' games through Wednesday night's victory over Atlanta and has started at short in five of those games. Over that stretch, he's hit a modest .250 in 20 at-bats with one home run and five RBIs. But more importantly, he has looked healthy and has been sharp with his glove.

"Everybody gets all caught up in numbers," says Dodgers manager Joe Torre. "I'm more concerned with how can he help us win games on a day-to-day basis, and that won't show up on the stat sheet."

Torre says Garciaparra's mere presence back in the lineup is what he wants from his former All-Star -- no matter the role or position he plays -- and his work ethic and willingness to help the team will rub off on a roster stocked with young and, for the most part, unfulfilled talent.

"I'm still working at it," Nomar admits. "I haven't had that much time out there. I'm just doing what I can in trying to help this team win ball games."

But it's hard to imagine it doesn't hurt even the notoriously intense and stoic Nomar when he admits that even he doesn't know how long he can stay healthy. "It's just one of those things," he says. "There's nothing you can do about it. If you get frustrated, it doesn't help anything. I'd rather use that energy to do everything I can to get out there, play and help the team."

Garciaparra may just be keeping the position warm until the team can trade for an everyday replacement at short. GM Ned Colletti is working the phones and has identified a handful of players, reportedly including Pittsburgh's Jack Wilson, worth pursuing to handle SS duties for the rest of the season. That would relegate Nomar to a platoon role, as both other positions where he has helped the Dodgers -- first and third -- are now occupied by young studs James Loney and Blake DeWitt.

But until that happens, Nomar is back at the position where he spent the first nine seasons of his career. And the clock is ticking. The Southern California native will turn 35 this month and is in the second year of a two-year, $18.5 million deal with his hometown Dodgers. It's worth speculating if he'll still even be in baseball next season.

Torre is taking a conservative approach as to how much he can play him and says he's nowhere near ready to begin penciling Garciaparra into the lineup on an everyday basis (he'll probably get every fourth game off for now).

"I have no trouble putting him out there and he's going to be the one I'm going to put at shortstop on a regular basis," Torre says. "But we've got to make safe decisions. This is a game where, for the most part, a good number of your players are not going to play at 100 percent."

That's a huge understatement for the Dodgers, whose long injured list includes Juan Pierre, Brad Penny, Jason Schmidt and Furcal. Yet Los Angeles is suddenly tied with Arizona for first in the underachieving NL West, and there's a general feeling in the clubhouse that this team has more to show in the second half of the season. A lot of that attitude starts with Garciaparra.

"I only have one goal every year," says Nomar, "and that hasn't changed through all [the injuries] -- that's trying to win a World Series. We're right in this thing."

If the Dodgers are indeed still in it in October, perhaps Garciaparra will be as well.