{"id":606055,"date":"2026-03-04T17:10:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T17:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/606055\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T17:10:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T17:10:17","slug":"edwin-diazs-message-to-haters-scrutinizing-wbc-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/606055\/","title":{"rendered":"Edwin D\u00edaz’s message to haters scrutinizing WBC decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently gearing up<\/a> to defend their World Series title when the 2026 regular season gets underway later this month. Before that, the World Baseball Classic<\/a> will take place, and Dodgers free agent acquisition Edwin Diaz will be pitching<\/a> in the event, despite having suffered an injury at the tournament three years ago, which opened up a broader discourse about whether high-profile MLB players should even participate.<\/p>\n

Recently, Diaz’s Dodgers teammate Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez spoke on Diaz’s participation in the event.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIf (D\u00edaz had said no), I wouldn\u2019t have been surprised,\u201d Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez said. \u201cHe\u2019s risking a lot by playing in the tournament, especially given what happened in the previous one. But as a fellow Puerto Rican, those games just mean so much to us, being able to wear that uniform.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t surprised, because it was a freak injury, that he was willing to do it all over again,\u201d he said, per Katie Woo of The Athletic.<\/p>\n

Diaz himself also spoke on what went into the decision to play, as well as his response to those criticizing him in reference to the 2023 injury.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have only one response for that,\u201d D\u00edaz said. \u201cI didn\u2019t get hurt pitching. It was after the game. That could have happened to me anywhere. If I got hurt pitching, it\u2019s different. But I was just trying to celebrate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, Diaz suffered his patellar tendon tear while celebrating Puerto Rico’s win back in 2023, not while participating in the act of pitching itself. Still, that hasn’t stopped some on social media from criticizing his decision to participate for his native Puerto Rico once again this year.<\/p>\n

For a Dodgers pitching staff that suffered numerous injury setbacks during the 2025 season, Los Angeles will certainly be hoping that Diaz is indeed able to stay healthy throughout the tournament this time around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Dodgers are currently gearing up to defend their World Series title when the 2026 regular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2406],"tags":[5,39,1087,1165,4332,4333,774,57,3224,4331,4,3410,4820],"class_list":{"0":"post-606055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-dodgers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-dodgers","10":"tag-edwin-diaz","11":"tag-la","12":"tag-la-dodgers","13":"tag-ladodgers","14":"tag-los-angeles","15":"tag-los-angeles-dodgers","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-losangelesdodgers","18":"tag-mlb","19":"tag-mlb-injury","20":"tag-world-baseball-classic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116172018576925760","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=606055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}