LOS ANGELES — A day after a girl was hit by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium, the Los Angeles Dodgers said they were studying how to improve the protective netting.
The girl was hit on the head by a liner by the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger on Sunday and was taken to a hospital for precautionary tests. On Monday, the team said in a statement that in the off-season it had begun considering how the netting could be reconfigured.
The team said it would put the recommended changes into effect and extend the netting but provided no timeline or details.
The girl was sitting four rows from the field along the first-base line, just beyond the netting that extends to the end of the visiting dugout. The Dodgers did not identify the girl, who was alert and answering questions after she was struck in the first inning.
The team did not provide an update on her condition Monday.
Beginning last season, all 30 Major League Baseball teams extended their protective netting to at least the far ends of the dugouts, after several fans had been injured by foul balls in 2017. Even so, Linda Goldbloom, 79, died in August after being struck in the head by a foul ball at Dodger Stadium.
This month, a woman attending a Chicago White Sox game was struck by a ball off the bat of Eloy Jimenez. She was treated at a hospital and released. The White Sox then said they would extend protective netting to the foul poles. The Washington Nationals recently announced that they would extend their park’s netting during next month’s All-Star break.
A liner by Albert Almora Jr. of the Chicago Cubs struck a young girl in Houston in May. Both she and the woman in Chicago were sitting in the stands beyond the dugout on the third-base side.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said last week that he did not expect teams to make changes to the netting this season, but that he expected conversations to continue about whether it should be extended.