Padres @ Dodgers July 11, 2014: As The Outfield Turns

Hanley Ramirez is out tonight, but you already knew that. Miguel Rojas is the starting shortstop. At this point, I’m no longer “happy” or “sad” about Ramirez news. We’ve arrived in a perpetual state of nothingness, where Ramirez is neither active nor inactive. If a shortstop falls in the woods, and no one can watch it on TV, does it really happen?

	Padres			Dodgers
	7:10pm PT			Los Angeles, CA
RF	Smith		2B	Gordon
3B	Headley		RF	Puig
LF	Quentin		1B	Gonzalez
C	Grandal		LF	Kemp
1B	Goebbert		CF	Van Slyke
2B	Conrad		3B	Uribe
CF	Venable		SS	Rojas
SS	Amarista		C	Butera
P	Hahn (R)		P	Haren (L)

Obviously, that Andre Ethier sits in favor of Scott Van Slyke, against a righty, for the second day in a row, that’s of more interest here. Watch Don Mattingly‘s pre-game interview here, and see how hard your *cough*BS*cough* detectors are going off, won’t you?

Mattingly said that Ethier’s multiple physical issues have caused a noticeable drop on the outfielder’s energy, and he hopes some rest will “get it resolved.”

Or as Jon Weisman reported it:

“Trying to take care of him. He’s still having soreness all over the place … some leg issues and some other issues.”

So Ethier is sore in multiple areas. One, in fact, might actually say his soreness is “general,” and you know what that means, don’t you? Ding-ding-ding! That’s the magic word of the day for “we don’t want this guy to play right now, and we’re not going to throw him under the bus by actually saying that, but we can’t be more specific either,” which is basically exactly what happened when we all figured Josh Beckett was in line for a phantom DL stint, before maybe actually hurting his hip in his last start.

In the meantime, Van Slyke starts against Jesse Hahn. Carl Crawford sits again. The Padres are rolling out an infield right side of “Jake Goebbert” and “Brooks Conrad,” somewhat unbelievably. And we all wonder just how this is going to shake out after the All-Star break.

[table id=5 /]