LOS ANGELES — Had the Los Angeles Dodgers brought this lineup to Port St. Lucie, Fla., on March 16, the New York Mets and their fans would have immediately protested to the commissioner.
You are required to bring a representative club to road exhibition games. No such stipulation exists for regular-season games, at least not Thursday in Dodger Stadium.
The guys on Don Mattingly’s lineup card had hit nine home runs, total, in 2012 and driven in 105 runs. Scott Van Slyke was called up from Albuquerque on Thursday morning and immediately batted fifth.
The names were Gordon, Herrera, Rivera, Loney, Van Slyke, Kennedy, Treanor, Gwynn, Capuano.
Translated, it went like this:
Second-year player. Nineyear minor leaguer. A 33-yearold who hits .260. First baseman with 21 RBI in 72 games. Rookie. A 35-year-old with his sixth franchise in five years. A 36-year-old backup catcher. Center fielder with 17 RBI in 196 at-bats. And the pitcher.
Mattingly had just endured 27 innings of nothing in San Francisco. It’s a very long season. You’re out in front of your skis for a couple of months, and then underwater.
It got soggier Thursday night. The Dodgers did get two runs in the fourth, breaking a carton of 33 goose eggs, but lost, 3-2, and fell out of first place for the first time since April 10.
“There was a different feel to this one,” said Chris Capuano (9-3). “When we got those runs we were pretty jacked up in the dugout.”
Runs? When Dee Gordon doubled and came home on Elian Herrera’s triple, he was the first Dodger to touch third base since Sunday. The triplezero visit to San Francisco featured 16 hits, seven walks and an 0-for-18 performance with Dodgers in scoring position. Ten of the 27 leadoff hitters reached base.
The Dodgers did find real encouragements Thursday.
They reached a seven-year, $42 million agreement with 21-year-old Cuban defector Yasiel Puig, whom they never have scouted in person but has convinced them he can bring some badly needed verve to their depth chart.
They also learned that Andre Ethier’s oblique injury, suffered in the first inning in San Francisco on Wednesday, wasn’t chronic enough to disable him.
Mattingly said second baseman Mark Ellis should returnbefore the All-Star break and Matt Kemp should be ready shortly after that.
“At the end of the day we’ve got to be optimistic,” Mattingly said. “We’re getting ready to get some pretty good pieces back.
“We’re 11 games away from the break. We’ve played over half of those games without Matt. We’ve lost a starting pitcher in Ted Lilly. If somebody had told us all those things would happen and we’d be tied for the lead? We’d have said, ‘Sign me up for the rest of the year and let’s go.’”
And, yeah, if Kemp comes back and proves he’s worthy of being in the same profession as Mike Trout - he’s about the only prominent player to whom Trout hasn’t been compared - the Dodgers could win in their current state.
But hamstrings have their own plan.
“I’ve never had one,” AdamKennedy said, “But I’ve had groin pulls, and when they act up, they control your body.
“The other problem is that when you hurt your hamstring, and then you come back, you can hold back when you’re working out. You can hold back in rehab games. But when you’re in a real game and something happens, you saw it the last time with Matt. You’re going to go hard and that’s when something can go wrong.”
Kemp first hurt himself on May 13. He returned on May 29. On May 30, in the first inning, he accelerated to score from first on Ethier’s double. He knew when he crossed the plate that he was in trouble.
The Dodgers bonded to go 9-5 during Kemp’s first hiatus. But adrenalin only lasts so long - that’s why they call it a rush - and they are 11-15 without Kemp this time.
Club president Stan Kastensaid he has told General Manager Ned Colletti to “be very aggressive” on the road to the July 31 trade deadline, although the man who brought Manny Ramirez to town in 2008 usually is.
In truth, Colletti has few marketable bullets. There is negligible demand for slow, singles-hitting first basemen who don’t hit that many singles, even though James Loney’s clock in LA seems to have expired.
“I was surprised at how good this team was, especially the pitching,” Kasten said. “I still think development is our foundation. But we can do both. I want us to do big things. Smart things, yes, but big things.
“We should do big things. We’re the Dodgers. You can put that in caps: THE DODGERS.”
Conveniently, the O is just below the zero.
Sports, Pages 19 on 06/30/2012