Stormy Friday; Kid Kershaw Koming!

Not the kind of way to start off a weekend series against one of the more surprising teams so far, especially coming off a sweep of Cincinnati. The Dodgers played well last night against St. Louis, and got a much needed good start from D-Lowe (the team's third straight solid start). Unfortunately, the offense could never get going.

Personally, I still think losing Rafael Furcal for these last few weeks has hindered the offense.

Now, I don't live in L.A. anymore but it was quite a surprise to see the weather looking more like it does here in Texas. There was snow in the mountains, twin twisters in Moreno Valley, and a rain delay in a Dodger game. Last night's game went into an hour rain delay with one out in the bottom of the 9th inning with the Blue trailing 2-1. Just then, we had a widespread power outage here in parts of Dallas. Unfortunately, when the power came back on, I got to see the end of the game: Andruw Jones strike out swinging with the tying run at 3rd and winning run at first.

The guy claims he isn't the "make-excuses" kind of guy for anything, especially his current slump. He's been nursing a bum knee (torn cartilage) for who knows how long, and was recently benched in order to get some rest and try to strengthen the knee through exercises. So all he did was get a pinch-hitting call last night and looked no better than he did before.

Andruw? Get the damn surgery, take the six weeks to recover, recuperate, rehab and return, and hope you can give the team half a season's worth.

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Kid Kershaw is coming! The Dodgers have finally brought up Clayton Kershaw, who wowed and dazzled hitters during Spring Training. Kershaw will be making his Major League debut tomorrow afternoon. Kershaw might just be the spark in the rotation the Dodgers need. Penny and Lowe have been fairly inconsistent, and much of the production in the rotation has been coming from Billingsley and Kuroda. They have gotten virtually nothing out of the 5th spot all year, at least when it's been needed. Well, they don't have a day from now until June 9th, so a 5th starter is needed, so Kershaw will get at least three starts from now until then. Billingsley, who was to start tomorrow, will get an extra day off and start Monday in Chicago, and Kuroda will start Tuesday now instead of Monday.

To make room for Kershaw, Loaiza was activated from the DL and then designated for assignment, which means the Dodgers have 10 days to either trade or release him, and Brazoban was optioned back to AAA-Vegas.

Historical Night Concludes at Coliseum

Well, I wasn't able to personally be at the Coliseum last night for the historical night, but watching from afar on television, I was just as much in awe as I would have been if I had been there. From the wacky television camera angles, to the cooky dimensions, it was certainly a night to remember. Playing before the largest crowd ever in baseball history, the Red Sox upended the Dodgers 7-4 in front of an announced crowd of 115,300. That's in tickets sold! And even more importantly, as the event was part of the kickoff of the Dodgers 50th season in Los Angeles, all the proceeds from the event were going to ThinkCure, the Dodgers charity for cancer research.

The center field camera, usually just to the left or right of the pitcher in straight-away center field, was out in right-center field, almost directly behind the second base umpire much of the night. The dimensions were just as strange: 201 feet down the left field line, 374 to center, and about 300 down the right field line, almost an exact replica of the field as it was at the Coliseum from 1958 to 1961. Also in place was the 62-foot high screen from the left field foul line to left-center field as it was from '58 to '61. (Three home runs were hit over the screen: two by the Red Sox, one by James Loney of the Dodgers.) The bullpens were side-by-side in foul territory beyond the Red Sox third base dugout.

Even stranger was watching the defense in action. The Dodgers apparently did some homework and opted to scratch a left-fielder, allow the shortstop and third baseman to cover left field with the short dimensions and go with five infielders. Center fielder Andruw Jones played directly behind second base much of the night, and even covered second base on at least two occasions on stolen base attempts by the Red Sox. Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier were left to cover center and right fields.

The Dodgers were never really in the game, but that didn't appear to dampen anyone's spirits at the game. There was a beach ball sighting or two in the stands. What would a Dodger game be without a beach ball bouncing around amongst the crowd? There was even a wave! (History tidbit: the wave originated at the Coliseum in 1984 during the Summer Olympics, when fans grew bored between the day and night events; the wave was their way of keeping themselves entertained between events.) But, as it is at most Dodger games in L.A., some of the crowd began to head for the exits in the 7th inning. And slowly the game, the night, the event, came to a close as Jonathan Papelbon struggled to get the final three outs of the game.

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Some notes following the game heading into opening day tomorrow afternoon:

* Brad Penny was named the Opening Day starter tomorrow by Joe Torre. This will be Penny's first Opening Day start as a Dodger.

* The fifth spot in the rotation was awarded to Esteban Loaiza, in part because he has a guaranteed contract in place for the season. Loaiza didn't particularly have a good spring. Chan Ho Park did have a brilliant spring, and would have been the better choice of the two, but he doesn't have a guaranteed contract, and it appears he will be sent down to AAA Las Vegas, and not forgotten. Jason Schmidt will start the season on the DL as expected, and Clayton Kershaw, who had a brilliant Spring, will be sent down to the minors.

* Blake Dewitt has emerged as the third baseman for Opening Day with Nomar Garciaparra, Andy Laroche and Tony Abreu all expected to start the season on the DL.

* Jeff Kent made his Spring debut on Friday, played all nine innings last night, and will likely play today to gear up for Opening Day tomorrow. There was concern he might start the season on the DL to give his injured hamstring more time to heal, leaving the Dodgers even thinner in the infield. There was also speculation that Dodgers had been talking to Kansas City for infielder Esteban German, but the Royals were said to be dead set on receiving Chin-Lung Hu in return, something Dodgers were unwilling to do. Instead, Hu will now be one of the two reserve infielders, along with Delwyn Young. Veteran Ramon Martinez has been cut.

* Rudy Seanez and Mike Myers were released earlier in the week after both had poor Springs. Rookie reliever Ramon Troncoso has impressed enough during Spring to earn a spot in the bullpen. Hong-Chih Kuo also makes the club as the team's long-reliever/spot starter.

* Mark Sweeney has made the club, as well, as the primary pinch hitter and backup to James Loney at first base.

* And last but not least, it appears Juan Pierre has played himself out of a starting job after hitting .169 entering today's Spring finale. I had been campaigning since the day he was signed that he shouldn't have been signed, and campaigning even moreso since Jones was signed in December that he shouldn't even be in the starting lineup. With Jones in center field having pushed Pierre to left field temporarily, Ethier and Kemp should be the obvious choices to play everyday over Pierre anyway, as they are better offensively, and both have better arms, and can cover just as much ground as Pierre defensively. They both also earned their jobs by having solid Springs. Jason Repko has also made the club.

Konichiwa Kuroda-san!

It's done! All that's left is an official announcement to come tomorrow at a noon PT press conference out at the Stadium. The deal for Hiroki Kuroda is reported to be three years, $35.3 million. Here is mlb.com's Ken Gurnick's report. An official press release from the team will come tomorrow.

I, for one, am ecstatic about the deal. First, they get much needed rotation depth without having to give up ANY of the kids. Second, the deal is for only three years. While we don't know what to expect from Kuroda, and while $35.3 million does seem a bit much for a middle-to-back-of-the-rotation guy, they do get some depth. This helps offset yesterday's trade that sent ace Dan Haren from Oakland to Arizona. The Dodgers now have a very formidable rotation that features Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Chad Billingsley and Kuroda. A healthy Jason Schmidt would certainly help, or an effective Esteban Loaiza. One or the other will fill the fifth spot, probably Schmidt, while the other, likely Loaiza, will come out of the pen as a long reliever or spot starter.

Now all they have to do is find a taker for Juan Pierre and the Dodgers are set to go into Spring Training.

Trying To Keep Up

It seems like my posts are fewer are farther between, weekly instead of daily, but I promise to at least try to stay on this more frequent!

Anyway, great homestand so far, with one more to go tomorrow. We already know how that last game in Chicago turned out, and things were looking good in San Francisco last weekend, but they Giants got the best of us in two of those three games with late inning heroics off Brox, two games the Blue had in the bag, too.

The team has been playing great since they lost the opener on Monday to San Diego. The pitching has been soild, Chad Billingsley and Takashi Saito, most notably, and how about that James Loney?! This guy is just tearing it up! He's hitting EVERYTHING in sight these days, and is almost single-handedly carrying the offense on his shoulders. But it's nice to see the rest of the offense helping out a little, and its even nicer to see a couple of the vets making their presence felt, as well. We know about Kent and his recent surge again that has seen his average get back up to near .300, and check this out... Kent's the lone Dodger with 20 dingers! But Nomar and Gonzo have really made the most of their playing time these past few days, as well. Nomar's had two very nice games this weekend so far, and Gonzo's had two huge hits this week that helped them get a couple of wins.

Dodgers have won four straight (I believe they're looking for their first 5-game winning streak of the season!) and what a perfect time for a nice long winning streak! They've made up a lot of ground in the standings of late (just 1.5 behind San Diego for the Wild Card, and 3.5 behind Arizona for first with 13 to go), so every game is magnified now as they're knocking on the doorsteps of Arizona and San Diego. They have four remaining with Arizona (one tomorrow at the Ravine, and three next weekend in Phoenix), six with the Rockies (three in L.A., three in Denver) and the final three against the Hated-Ones-to-the-North.

As for tomorrow, Esteban Loaiza gets the nod against Eddie Gonzalez. Obviously it is very crucial that Loaiza has a better game than his last outing against the Padres...