April 26, 2014 Rockies @ Dodgers: In Appreciation Of Juan Uribe

After 24 consecutive games starting at third base for the Dodgers — 27 if you include the end of last season, and 37 if you include the 2013 playoffs — Juan Uribe takes a seat tonight against Juan Nicasio and the Rockies. The last Dodger to start at third base other than Uribe was Jerry Hairston on Sept. 25, in what ended up being the final appearance of his career. (He went 0-3 and was hit for in the ninth by Dee Gordon.) Justin Turner steps in for him, making his first hot corner start as a Dodger and the 51st of his career.

	Rockies			Dodgers
	6:10pm PT			Los Angeles, CA
RF	Barnes		2B	Gordon
3B	Arenado		RF	Puig
LF	Gonzalez		SS	Ramirez
SS	Tulowitzki		1B	Gonzalez
C	Rosario		CF	Kemp
1B	Morneau		LF	Ethier
CF	Stubbs		3B	Turner
2B	LeMahieu		C	Butera
P	Nicasio (R)		P	Maholm (L)

If you were around in 2011, when Uribe was atrocious, or especially 2012, when Uribe was also atrocious but then hilariously treated as though he had the plague for the final two months of the season, you know that this never, ever stops being shocking. Uribe isn’t just valuable, he’s indispensable. He’s a spectacular fielder. He’s backing up his 2013 resurgence with a solid April at the plate. Considering the outfield overflow and how smoothly the rotation has handled the absence of Clayton Kershaw, I’m not sure it’s that crazy to say that only Hanley Ramirez is more irreplaceable on this roster than Uribe is.

Think on that for a second. Juan Uribe, valuable, important part to a championship-caliber team. The world’s a twisted place.

Turner and friends — but not Carl Crawford, who takes a seat tonight as Matt Kemp gets back in there — back up Paul Maholm, who is attempting to prove he’s not actually the worst starting pitcher in the big leagues in what may be his last opportunity to do so. I’m being facetious there, somewhat, because Maholm has spent most of the last decade giving 180 or so league-averageish innings. There’s value in that, and it’s hard to believe that he’s suddenly turned into, well, this. It’s also hard to look at his stat line and see a 3.06 K/9 in a world where four guys probably struck out while I was writing that sentence. There’s just no way that can continue.

It won’t, of course, because Kershaw is going to come back some time soon. Eric Stephen reports that there’s some amount of disagreement between Kershaw and the medical staff about whether another rehab start is in order, and that’s not in the least bit surprising. Of course Kershaw wants to come back immediately. My guess is that after throwing 56 pitches last night, they’ll want to at least have him get into the 70s or so in one more start, but we’ll see who wins out there. Perhaps another awful Maholm outing tonight helps make the decision for them.

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