Good news, friends! Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register is reporting that Ted Lilly will be activated tomorrow, though he slyly points out that  it “doesn’t sound like [Don Mattingly] knows what to do with him though.”

Like most of you, I’d hoped to never see Lilly in a Dodger uniform again, but I suppose there’s at least some utility here. There’s not really a long man on this team, and with guys like Matt Magill, Josh Beckett, and tonight’s starter, Chris Capuano, often having trouble working deep into games, a long man is a nice thing to have. You can’t continually get through short starts by asking J.P.Howell, Paco Rodriguez, & Matt Guerrier to work multiple innings. If it sounds like I’m grasping at straws here, perhaps I am, but I can live with Lilly pitching four innings in a blow out. I cannot live with him entering a tight game with men on base, nor do I really want to see him getting starts ahead of Magill. I imagine that Javy Guerra would be headed back to Triple-A to make room.

But Lilly isn’t here yet, so we’ll focus on the fact that Matt Kemp is once again hitting second and that Tim Federowicz gets the start behind the dish. I like that Federowicz is spelling A.J. Ellis because it means that Ramon Hernandez is not, and in fact Hernandez has started (and appeared) just once this month, back on May 7. It’s actually a little interesting that he’s not even being used as a pinch hitter with three catchers on the roster, but perhaps Mattingly has just as little idea why he’s on the roster as we do.

Of course, I can’t even hammer too much on the fact that Hernandez still exists, because there’s not exactly anyone in Albuquerque that I’m dying to see — maybe Alex Castellanos, but he’s only just back to action after spending weeks on the disabled list — and there’s a pretty damn good argument to make to drop Luis Cruz ahead of Hernandez. With Mark Ellis likely to be activated in the next few days, we can be happy to expect that at least one of those two anchors will finally be set adrift.

Zack Greinke is back. It’s probably too soon, and we all pray it’s not. I think that’s been made pretty clear over the last few days, so all we can do is enjoy the fact that he’s on the mound tonight rather than Matt Magill, and hope that’s able to be effective. Don’t look now, but if the Dodgers win tonight, they’ll head into tomorrow’s off day having won four of five.

So what’s news? Josh Beckett is off to the disabled list with a strained groin, as absolutely all of us expected. He is, believe it or not, the sixth different Dodger starting pitcher to go on the DL this year. It’s May 15. But hey, fire Don Mattingly, you guys.

After tomorrow’s day off, Hyun-jin Ryu & Chris Capuano are lined up to start the first two games in Atlanta this weekend. That most likely lines up Magill to make the Sunday start; it’s not confirmed yet, but unless you really want Ted Lilly on three days rest — or any days rest, ever, at any time — the other options are limited.

I’ll tell you who it won’t be, however, because apparently I can’t avoid talking about him any longer: it won’t be Jonathan Sanchez, who did sign a minor league deal with the Dodgers today. Pedro Gomez of ESPN broke the news, and the way he keeps describing it on Twitter is that Albuquerque is just a pit stop for Sanchez on the way to Los Angeles.

But let’s be honest here: Sanchez is available now because he’s awful. He was DFA’d by Kansas City last year because he’s awful. He wasn’t retained by Colorado last year because he’s awful. He was cut loose by Pittsburgh this year after only four starts because he was, wait for it, awful. (And kind of a jerk, too) Those are three teams who are generally so desperate for pitching that anyone with a pulse and a left arm is valuable to them, and all three said, “thanks, but no thanks.”

So what do the Dodgers want with him? Here’s five names: Matt Palmer, Aaron Laffey, Blake Johnson, Angel Castro, & Anthony Ortega. That quintet, at least while Sean White & Stephen Fife are hurt and Magill is with the Dodgers, is currently the Albuquerque starting rotation. That’s bad; that’s real bad, and while Sanchez is probably not much better, do remember that this is a minor league deal that has a July 1 opt-out. If Sanchez is starting for the Dodgers by then, then I’m guessing this club has much, much bigger problems.

All of which brings us back to tonight’s lineup, which in theory could be considered “a much bigger problem” since Carl Crawford is taking a seat against lefty Ross Detwiler, which allows Dee Gordon to get another chance to lead off. But you know what? I don’t hate this as much as you’d think I’d would. Mattingly has been good about keeping Gordon out of the leadoff spot with Crawford around, and it’s not like there’s another obvious option here, and I do like that he’s got Andre Ethier behind A.J. Ellis against the lefty and that Scott Van Slyke gets a chance instead of trying to force Skip Schumaker into the lineup.

Mostly, I just like that Luis Cruz is nowhere to be found, and as Mark Ellis & Jerry Hairston continue to rehab, I truly think that the day where we’re Cruz-free is coming soon.

Anyway, this is the last home game before the team heads out on the road, so be sure to check out some Dodgers tickets.

Congratulations, Scott Van Slyke: after a solid Sunday showing, your reward is… a seat on the bench, as Adrian Gonzalez returns to man first base. For now, anyway; I’m not even sure why I’m bothering to type “Gonzalez is in the starting lineup” more than three seconds before the first pitch based on his recent history of being scratched.

Don Mattingly is going with his lefty-heavy lineup tonight against Washington starter Jordan Zimmermann — Matt Kemp & A.J. Ellis are the only righty bats here — and while that’s fine, it’s unlikely to matter. Zimmermann gets lost a little bit in a Washington rotation that has Stephen Strasburg & Gio Gonzalez (neither of whom, fortunately, will be seen in this series) but he’s one of the brightest young starters in baseball. He also has almost no platoon split, pitching to a .002 OPS difference against lefties & righties over his career.

The Nationals are really a fascinating team, since they were the consensus class of the NL but have started slowly; I wrote about their struggling offense over the weekend at ESPN. They’ve been turning it around of late, however, and that all comes back to Bryce Harper, who made his MLB debut in Los Angeles last season. In the last 365 days, he’s merely hitting .279/.352/.516 with 32 homers and 18 steals in 674 plate appearances. He won’t be 21 until October… that just ain’t right.

Elsewhere, we still don’t know where Zack Greinke is starting on Wednesday, and the longer we wait the more likely it seems that he’ll go for the Dodgers, if only to give the Nationals some trouble in potentially preparing for two different pitchers. I voiced my concern about this last week, and frankly, the more I think about it, the more I want to see Matt Magill. It’s not like having Greinke make a second rehab start is such a grievous offense, and he’s admitted that he’s in “spring training form” when it comes to pitch execution; remember, he did miss most of camp with that right elbow concern. I absolutely would not mind playing it safe on this one.

So all that being said, absolutely get ready to see him on Wednesday.