Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw joins from IL on Thursday; Tyler Glasnow starts Wednesday

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers’ reserves appear to be in good health. Despite investing more than $1 billion in baseball’s most high-profile offseason, they are in dire need of reinforcements.

The club’s All-Star right-hander Tyler Glasnow is expected to make his return from a brief stint on the injured list on Wednesday against the San Francisco Giants.

Kicker manager Dave Roberts said Saturday afternoon: Clayton Kershaw will return to the Dodgers’ rotation on Thursday, officially marking the three-time Cy Young winner’s return from midseason shoulder surgery and beginning the future left-handed pitcher’s 17th season with the club.

Glasnow’s hiatus from the injured list came at an optimal time for his overall effort — he’s thrown 109 innings this season, just 11 shy of his career-high — and amid a cluster of Dodgers pitching injuries that have suddenly made starting pitching a priority at this month’s deadline. No team in baseball has more pitchers on the injured list (11), though that number is set to drop by two in the coming week.

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The right-handed pitcher is not expected to return with strict innings restrictions. But how the Dodgers chart a course that Glasnow never achieved remains to be seen. He has been the Dodgers’ most reliable arm thus far, posting a 3.47 ERA in his 18 starts.

“I believe the player has a vested interest in it,” Roberts said. “If you’re going to have that conversation and if the player is on board, then we’re in it together, regardless of the circumstances. Tyler’s time in the big leagues, he deserves to be a part of that conversation, however we go.”

Kershaw’s return comes at a timely and familiar time. His signing this spring was billed as the icing on the cake of a perfect offseason, the luxury of an established presence who can bolster the club’s rotation midseason. Now he’s entering the mix, hoping to shoulder the burden for a group that hasn’t had a starting pitcher record a win in nearly a month.

The 36-year-old left-handed pitcher is fresh off the first major arm surgery of his career, undergoing surgery to repair the capsule and glenohumeral ligaments in his left shoulder. While he has maxed out at 91.7 mph in his rehab starts — a few beats faster than when he pitched with the affected shoulder last October — that velocity dipped as he reached the fourth inning of his rehab start with the club’s Triple-A affiliate on Friday night.

For now, though, the Dodgers need him to join a rotation that includes four rookies, with a fifth possible on Monday, when prospect River Ryan could make his major league debut.

“If you look at what we’ve been through the last couple months, it’s certainly a necessity versus a luxury, I think that’s what we thought when we were putting the roster together,” Roberts said of Kershaw’s return. “Now it’s certainly a necessity.”

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(Photo: Brian Rothmuller/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)