Dodgers @ D’backs May 18, 2014: So Long, Arizona

Chase Field - Flickr Ryan LeightyAren’t you glad yesterday never happened? I sure am. (If you must know more about it, Jon Weisman has a great rundown of all of yesterday’s minutiae here.) All I’m going to say about it is that even the great Clayton Kershaw can’t be expected to be perfect 100 percent of the time; it’s just not possible. You hope that an “off day” wouldn’t be quite that ugly, but there it is. I can’t say I have a lot of concern — by which I mean, any concern — about him bouncing back as usual on the upcoming road trip.

Dodgers
D’Backs
1:10pm PT
Phoenix, AZ
2B
Gordon
RF
Parra
RF
Puig
SS
Owings
SS
Ramirez
1B
Goldschmidt
1B
Gonzalez
C
Montero
CF
Ethier
3B
Prado
LF
Crawford
LF
Ross
3B
Uribe
CF
Pollock
C
Butera
2B
Pennington
P
Haren (R)
P
Collmenter (R)

In the meantime, the Dodgers have one final game in Arizona, and that’s all but it for the remainder of the season. Due to the Australia trip and an oddly front-loaded schedule, the Dodgers don’t return to Arizona until August 27-28 for a two-game series, and that’ll be it. I can’t say I’m unhappy about seeing the the team leave this place for a while, and we can all hope that the Dodgers get on a streak so hot that they’re in position to clinch by then, setting up another pool trip. (Which is obviously not going to happen, it should go without saying.)

Otherwise, the rotation looks like it might be back to full strength for the first time all year. Hyun-jin Ryu will start on Wednesday in New York, per Don Mattingly, and that will bump Paul Maholm to the bullpen, probably. Matt Kemp gets the day off today, and with tomorrow’s day off, I like the idea of keeping him rested and healthy as much as possible.

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About Mike Petriello

Mike writes about lots of baseball in lots of places, and right now that place is MLB.com.