The last time Aaron Harang started, Adam Kennedy did his best to singlehandedly toss the game away, making several huge defensive mistakes and accounting for four outs in just six pitches at the plate. The only reason you can’t look back on this site and find a full accounting of this is that Andre Ethier & Juan Rivera decided to lead yet another late comeback, and all of a sudden complaining about Kennedy that evening seemed a little less relevant.

Yet here we are again tonight with Harang on the mound, and Kennedy is back in the lineup at second base. I’m at an absolute loss to explain why; as if Kennedy’s .226/.321/.290 line wasn’t atrocious enough – somehow even worse than his awful 2011 was – it’d be below .200 if not for that 4-4 game he stumbled into in May. He’s contributing nothing, on offense or on defense. Meanwhile, Ivan De Jesus is buried, despite hitting .310/.344/.414 in his short time up.

Now, you know as well as I do that the 32 plate appearances De Jesus has are basically the definition of “small sample size”, and the shine has long since worn off his prospect status after a 2009 broken leg and multiple reports of a poor attitude since then. Frankly, from what I’ve heard about his reputation within the organization, I’m shocked he’s even still a Dodger, and that most likely goes a long way towards explaining why he’s been up for a month and has received only four starts, none since June 1. But all you can really do is ask a player to perform when he’s given the chance to, and so far, De Jesus has.

This isn’t really about De Jesus, of course, because I don’t see him as an everyday player and the jury is still out on if he can even be a major leaguer, especially if he’s mainly limited to second base. But we do know that Kennedy offers little – if any – value at this stage of his career, and no matter what kind of person De Jesus might be, there’s at least a chance that he can help you win some games. If and when he does get in, it’s hard to expect a young guy to help you after being nailed to the bench for three weeks at a time, anyway.

On the other hand, De Jesus is likely to be little more than an afterthought as Mark Ellis & Justin Sellers heal and as potential trades happen, and on that front, there’s this to report…

Dodgers scouting Youk tonight at Fenway.

— Nick Cafardo (@nickcafardo) June 19, 2012

I shouldn’t have to explain that teams have scouts at many games and simply watching a player isn’t exactly the same as telling Zach Lee, Nathan Eovaldi, and Joc Pederson to start packing their bags, but since people seem to forget, I suppose I do. I don’t know what the move might be or when it might happen, but there’s going to be a move at some point, and so my dreams of seeing Juan Uribe DFA’d along with Kennedy aren’t quite dead yet.