Rejoice, for there is televised Dodger baseball. Sure, there’s no Matt Kemp or Carl Crawford — dealing with stiffness in his left arm — or Adrian Gonzalez or Hanley Ramirez or Yasiel Puig or Mike Trout or Josh Hamilton or Albert Pujols. That’s to be expected this early in spring, for the most part.
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Angels
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Dodgers
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CF
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Bourjos |
CF
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Schumaker
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SS
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Aybar |
2B
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M.Ellis
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2B
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Kendrick |
DH
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Ethier
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1B
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Trumbo |
3B
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Cruz
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LF
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Wells
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LF
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Moore
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3B
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Callaspo |
C
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A.Ellis
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DH
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Ianetta |
SS
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Punto
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C
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Lake |
1B
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Uribe
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RF
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Grichuk
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RF
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Amezaga
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But there will be A.J. Ellis, and there will be Clayton Kershaw (followed by Ted Lilly, Peter Moylan, Steve Ames, & Josh Wall). There will be Luis Cruz, making his return from several days off thanks to a bout with the flu, and there will be Jeremy Moore, quickly becoming my favorite camp newcomer. And most importantly, there will be Vin Scully, and that makes everything okay. What more could you want from February 28th?
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The more we hear about the overstuffed Dodger rotation, the more it sounds like Aaron Harang is clearly going to be the odd man out. At least three different reporters yesterday – Kevin Baxter, Steve Dilbeck, & A.J. Cassavell — ran stories about how Don Mattingly doesn’t see Harang as a bullpen option, and intimating that Harang’s not really interested in it anyway. Most intriguing, from Cassevell’s story, is that Mattingly noted Chris Capuano as a possible “situational arm, who may be able to get lefties out in the late innings, while also providing length if needed.” Given that earlier this month, we identified Capuano as being more effectively utilized out of the pen than in the rotation in the first place, that’s promising news indeed. So I’d say my latest handicapping of this race is that Harang is as good as gone, Capuano might stick on the active roster in some way, and Lilly either needs an injury elsewhere to have a chance or breaks down himself.
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This morning in Arizona, the Dodgers held their annual open tryout, which generated some Twitter fun earlier this week when we learned that 44-year-old Japanese lefty Tsuyoshi Shimoyanagi would be among those in attendance. As it turns out, he’s not even close to being the most fun participant — J.P. Hoornstra brings us a shot of 54-year-old knuckleballer Tom Wright. Wright describes himself as “the next great knuckleballer” in this YouTube clip; he’s also apparently got a really sweet 1965 Ford Thunderbird for sale.
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Finally, a thought on Alex Castellanos, who homered in back-to-back games this week as he tries to win the last spot off the bench. I said earlier this week that I wasn’t sure he had the speed to play center, though I also made the caveat that it was simply one inning of one spring game and therefore a completely unfair judgement. Still, I’m not sure that it really matters all that much. Yes, it’d be great if he can play a little center, but this isn’t a situation where he absolutely needs to prove he can do so to make the team just because no one else can fill the role. Skip Schumaker is going to be the primary backup center fielder almost no matter what, so this really should be about whether Castellanos can hit in the big leagues. I can’t see how a big league hitter (if he’s deemed to be so) who can play the outfield corners would have his spot on the team hanging on whether he can be the third center fielder, so while I hope he shows he can, it also doesn’t mean a ton to me right now.

