Nationals @ Dodgers August 12, 2015: Name This Infield

Raise your hand if you thought the Dodgers would be starting Jose Peraza, Enrique Hernandez, and Alberto Callaspo as three-quarters of the infield in August. I mean, if you did, take a bow, I guess, because two of those guys were with Atlanta, but you get the point. It’s a long season. Single games can get weird sometimes.

That’s happening partially because Juan Uribe was traded (sigh) and partially because Howie Kendrick & Justin Turner are on the disabled list, but finally we’re getting some news about Turner and the pimple from hell that kept him out for so long: It was far more serious.

#Dodgers Justin Turner said he was told he had MRSA, a type of staph infection that can be very difficult to treat, very serious if spreads

— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) August 13, 2015

MRSA is a hugely serious issue, and it ran through the locker room of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a few years back, ending the careers of at least two players. If Turner is indeed activated later this week, as he’s expected to be, consider it a bullet dodged. (He was running the bases and taking grounders today.)

Otherwise, business as usual, except that Carl Crawford moves up to the top of the lineup for the first time this season. I feel like we have to endlessly defend Crawford, apparently because he’s not at all worth the money. No, his line doesn’t look great this year, but that’s in 77 essentially meaningless plate appearances scattered around a long stint on the DL. A year ago, he had a 119 wRC+. The year before that, it was 107. It’s worth the team’s time to get him back in the mix. That it’s Andre Ethier sitting rather than Yasiel Puig should probably help with all the silly “but Puig is being benched!” stuff that blew up the other day. I mean, it won’t. But it should.