PHOENIX —
One day, the pain would be in his groin. The next day it would be in his abdomen. Then it would shift to his hips or his adductors or his quadriceps.
For much of the last two seasons, Kiké Hernández played through discomfort that ranged from annoying to excruciating, the utility man sitting out about one-third of the 2022 season with Boston because of injuries and gritting through one of the worst seasons of his career for the Red Sox and Dodgers in 2023.
But with his trade back to Los Angeles last summer came some relief in the form of a diagnosis that multiple MRI tests failed to reveal: Hernández, it turned out, had been playing with not one but two sports hernias, and he underwent surgery to repair them on Oct.