He's baaaack! It has been a month-and-a-half since Los Angeles Dodgers ace Julio Urias has taken the mound, but the wait finally ends Saturday night. LA has activated the All-Star lefty from the injured list ahead of his scheduled road start against the Kansas City Royals, per an MLB.com press release.

Urias was expected to come back from the strained hamstring earlier, but a setback pushed his return date to a week before the All-Star break. A meeting with the second-worst team in baseball is the perfect spot for him to ease back in and shake off the injury rust.

For weeks, the last troubling memory fans had of the star southpaw was a miserable outing against the embattled St. Louis  Cardinals on May 18th, in which he was rocked for six runs on four home runs in three innings of work. Hopefully, he can immediately erase that blow-up from people's memory and return to Cy Young-caliber form the rest of the way.

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Embracing the next man up approach to full effect, the Dodgers have gotten big innings from top prospects like Bobby Miller and recently Emmet Sheehan to stay in contention in the highly-competitive National League West. But Julio Urias adds a whole new layer of intimidation for LA.

The Dodgers (46-35) are just two games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks for first place. A healthy Urias could coincide with the team embarking on the big run that the rest of the league has been so accustomed to seeing these last several years. That fantasy cannot be realized against lowly KC, but this return outing is the club's first step towards reaching that high ceiling.