LOS ANGELES — Kiké Hernández wanted to provide proof, so he called Andrew Friedman this November. Hernández was still loopy from the drugs after left elbow surgery, so he had Dr. Neal ElAttrache speak for him. Hernández and the Los Angeles Dodgers had known something was wrong for a while. Each time he got into his batting stance felt like “a blow torch” was being put to his left elbow, Hernández said. He was still surprised when he learned the extent of what he was playing through during the Dodgers’ World Series run.So the then-free agent called the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations.“I woke up with ElAttrache telling me, ‘This was the worst injury I’ve ever seen of this kind, and I don’t know how you played,’” Hernández recalled Monday. “I told him, ‘Thank you. I take it as a compliment.’ And I FaceTimed Andrew right then and there, and I told him, “ElAttrache, tell him what you just said,’ and I was like, ‘I did this for you, so you better bring me back.’”Hernández is indeed back. He returned to the Dodgers lineup on Monday, ahead of schedule after undergoing surgery that reattached muscle to the bone in his left elbow. He’d endured the pain since May 28, 2025, when he first injured the elbow scoring on a wild pitch against the Cleveland Guardians.