ESPN

Been meaning to wonder aloud about Hong-Chih Kuo, who remains unsigned with February just around the corner. The Dodgers declined to offer salary arbitration to Kuo for obvious reasons following his massive struggles in 2011, but the memory of his 2010 dominance makes him a good guy to have at Spring Training on a low- or no-guarantee contract. A small item in this Nick Cafardo notebook in the Boston Globe (via MLB Trade Rumors) indicates that a few teams feel the same, and Kuo could be signing somewhere soon. Los Angeles? I don't know ...

As expected, the Dodgers have tendered 2012 contract offers to Clayton Kershaw, Andre Ethier and James Loney but not to Hong-Chih Kuo, who stood to make anywhere from $2.5 million to $3.5 million next season despite his uncertain condition.

The Dodgers can still pursue the much-admired Kuo as a free agent. We haven't gotten particularly clear signals since the season ended as to whether Kuo would be inclined to return to Los Angeles at a discount.

For more ... Remembering 2011: Hong-Chih Kuo

Sue Falsone became the first Major League Baseball female physical therapist in 2007 with the Dodgers, then shifted to a consultant role in February. Now, Stephania Bell of ESPN.com reports, the Dodgers have hired Falsone as their new head physical therapist/athletic trainer and will announce it next week. The move, Bell writes, will make Falsone "the first woman to serve as head athletic trainer or head physical therapist of a team in any of the four major professional sports leagues."

Stan Conte, who has been the Dodgers' director of medical services and head trainer for five seasons, is expected to remain with the Dodgers, though it's not entirely clear what the delegation of responsibilities between him and Falsone will be. Assistant trainer Todd Tomczyk recently left the Dodgers for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Update: Bell sent me the following in an e-mail ... "As far as her role with the Dodgers, I confirmed that she has always been a consultant since 2007, although between 2008-10 she did have an increased role and traveled with the team, which she did not do this year. But she has always been a consultant to them ... until now where she will be formally hired."



* * *

• Kirk Gibson in Game 1 of the 1988 World Series had the Fall Classic's best-ever single-game WPA (win probability added, a stat that measures how much a player's performance contributes to a team's victory, taking into account the situations in which a player bats) – until Thursday, when David Freese topped him, according to Baseball-Reference Blog.
• Hong-Chih Kuo's "tale of perseverance" is recapped by Eno Sarris of Fangraphs.
• Jim Mills writes at MLB.com about an exchange of letters in 1956 between Don Newcombe and Mills' father, who defended Newcombe against racist name-callers in the stands in Philadelphia.
• This might be the blog post of the year, from Sam Miller of the Orange County Register for The Score. Confession: My family ate Taco Bell last night.

The rumors were flying today that the one-month postponement of the winner-take-all bankruptcy court hearing on Frank McCourt's ability to prematurely sell the Dodgers' post-2013 TV rights (what a mouthful that was) was actually a sign that a deal was being forged that would facilitate McCourt selling the franchise. (See ESPNLosAngeles.com and Bill Shaikin of the Times for more.)

What's clear is that talks have been taking place, what's unclear is whether there was any real momentum behind the talks. And so, there's no way of knowing whether the next month might see the happy revelation of closure, or whether it will just be 30 more days tacked onto our painful waiting game.

Elsewhere ...

• Hong-Chih Kuo is going to have arthroscopic surgery to remove a loose body (no, this isn't a Halloween joke) in his left elbow. Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com talked to Dodger training chief Stan Conte about the situation. Kuo is planning to try to pitch in 2012, but while he is certain to be made a free agent by the Dodgers, they're still as good a bet as anyone to try to re-sign him to a discounted contract.
• Maury Wills is the subject of a story in the Times that illustrates what a longshot he was to make the majors with this anecdote: In 1959, Topps chose not to pay Wills the grand total of $5 for the rights to have him on a baseball card.
• How overdue are the Dodgers for a World Series compared to other teams? Check the list at Cy Morong's Cybermetrics.

The setup: Coming off his spectacular 2010 (1.20 ERA, .211 opposing on-base percentage, 73 strikeouts in 60 innings and a career-high 56 games) and three years removed from his most recent surgery, Kuo was expected to be an integral, if not the most integral, component to the Dodger bullpen.

The closeup: It was a bruising season for Kuo.

He lasted fewer than three weeks before he landed on the disabled list April 16 with a lower back strain, related to problems we would learn had been with him since the season began. That, at the time, seemed to explain why Kuo had walked four in 2 2/3 innings of a shaky start to 2011. Kuo returned to active duty May 1, only to be charged with four runs on a walk, a hit batter and two singles in one-third of an inning that night, though three of those runners scored with Mike MacDougal on the mound. Kuo's ERA soared to 15.00; it would never drop below 8.00 at any point in the remainder of the year.

Only 10 days later, on May 11, Kuo went back to the disabled list, but not for physical reasons. Officially sidelined by "anxiety disorder," Kuo was the subject of a piece by Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports in late June:

... Kuo, who turns 30 next month, is one of the game’s top left-handed relievers when healthy. But he has undergone four elbow operations and battled the “yips” — an inability to throw the ball with accuracy — in 2009. In early May, during a series in Pittsburgh, he told Conte he no longer could pitch due to his anxiety.

Conte, after receiving permission from Kuo, spoke at length about the pitcher’s condition.

“The analogy I use is if you’re scared of small places, you’re claustrophobic and you’re scared of snakes. But you’re really good at catching those snakes, and they ask you every day to walk into a small, closed window-less room to grab them,” Conte said.

“They bite you. It hurts. But you’re the best in the world at doing it and they pay you a lot of money to do it. And every day it becomes worse and worse. It makes you believe you can’t do it, not for glory, not for fame, not for money.

“That’s how he was in Pittsburgh. He was like a guy in water who couldn’t float and begging to get out of the water. It was very emotional, the way he was begging us not to put him out there.” ...

When Kuo came back on June 21, it still wasn't with any sort of consistency, allowing at least one run or one inherited run in 14 of 31 appearances through the end of the season. He could still strike batters out at an incredible rate – 36 in 27 innings – but he couldn't be relied upon to do so without putting a bunch on base.

In September, Kuo did have two games in which he pitched two shutout innings. The first, on September 2, earned him his only victory of the season. The second, on September 24, lowered his season ERA to exactly 9.00. Kuo, who had allowed 48 baserunners in 60 innings the year before, finished with 49 in 27 innings this time.

Coming attractions: Entering the offseason, Kuo figured to become a free agent based on the assumption that the Dodgers will not tender him a contract that would commit them to paying well over $2 million in 2012. Though Kuo himself speculated to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com that he might retire, he was planning to pitch in a series of exhibition games against major-leaguers in his native Taiwan – only to come down with left-elbow discomfort, as Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com reports.

If and when he's ready to resume his major-league career, Kuo (like Hiroki Kuroda) might decide he's only comfortable doing so with the Dodgers, who could re-sign him for a lower base salary after non-tendering him. It is a very uncertain future for Kuo in baseball to say the least, but I'll always be struck by how Dodger fans, who can be a bitterly impatient lot when it comes to struggling players, always seemed to stand by Kuo no matter how bad it got. Signed by the organization in 1999 and a battler almost every day since, sidelined by the first of two Tommy John surgeries after his very first game in the minors in 2000, Kuo has earned tons of respect from this community.

Deuces wild: Clayton Kershaw's week consisted of two complete games, two runs and 22 strikeouts, and in so doing, he became the National League's one and only player of the week.

Elsewhere, Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports had a nice piece on Hong-Chih Kuo's battle with anxiety disorder.

... (Stan) Conte, after receiving permission from Kuo, spoke at length about the pitcher’s condition.

“The analogy I use is if you’re scared of small places, you’re claustrophobic and you’re scared of snakes. But you’re really good at catching those snakes, and they ask you every day to walk into a small, closed window-less room to grab them,” Conte said.

“They bite you. It hurts. But you’re the best in the world at doing it and they pay you a lot of money to do it. And every day it becomes worse and worse. It makes you believe you can’t do it, not for glory, not for fame, not for money. ...

The third feel-good three-game winning streak for the Dodgers is here, with these highlights coming from a 6-1 victory over Detroit:

• Hong-Chih Kuo returning to action for the first time since May 9 and throwing a nine-pitch perfect inning.
• Matt Kemp stealing two bases to reach 20 homers and 20 steals in his 75th game this season.
• A Dodger offense that gave Detroit starter Max Scherzer fits, with six runs on 11 baserunners in six innings.
• A.J. Ellis reaching base twice in his first start since April, raising his season on-base percentage to .435.
• Two times on base each as well for James Loney, Aaron Miles, Juan Uribe and Tony Gwynn Jr.
• Andre Ethier hitting his seventh home run of the year, on a 3-0 pitch.
• Back-to-back RBI doubles by Trent Oeltjen and Dee Gordon.
• Chad Billingsley allowing one run in his first five innings, before running into trouble in the sixth.
• Mike MacDougal overcoming us cynics by inducing a double play with the bases loaded in relief of Billingsley.
• The Dodgers' ERA this week: 0.33 so far, with one run, 12 hits and six walks against 28 strikeouts in 27 innings.
• For the second night in a row, a Dodger pitcher (Blake Hawksworth) struck out the side in the ninth.
• Up in San Francisco, the Giants giving up eight runs before getting their second out of the game in a 9-2 loss to Minnesota.

The Dodgers will go for their first three-game sweep of a series and four-game winning streak of the season Wednesday afternoon.

NL Batting Average
.336 Joey Votto, CIN
.335 Andre Ethier, LAD
.335 Jose Reyes, NYM
.331 Lance Berkman, STL
.329 Matt Kemp, LAD

NL Home Runs
18 Matt Kemp, LAD
17 Prince Fielder, MIL
17 Jay Bruce, CIN
15 Lance Berkman, STL
14 Albert Pujols, STL

NL Runs Batted In
55 Prince Fielder, MIL
53 Matt Kemp, LAD
48 Ryan Howard, PHI
47 Jay Bruce, CIN
45 Lance Berkman, STL

The odds are slim – he's at his hottest and still only leading in one category. But still, pretty impressive.

* * *

• The saga of Vin Scully's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame continues. As Tom Hoffarth of the Daily News reports, Southern California native Glenn Mingay is leading an effort to raise $2,500 needed to restore Scully's star to proper condition at Save Vin Scully's Star.
• John Sickels of Minor League Ball reviewed the Dodger draft. Summary: "You can see the money limits here, but this isn't a total disaster. Reed, Maynard, and O'Sullivan are all interesting, and there's a mixture of solid college performers and high-upside, high-risk bets as well. It could have been a lot worse. But it wasn't good, and the development staff has a lot of work to do with these raw guys."
• Hong-Chih Kuo and Kenley Jansen had encouraging rehab assignment debuts, writes Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, but the forecast looks much more grim for Vicente Padilla and Jon Garland. "Padilla has a bulging disk in his neck, a recurrence of a condition that limited him to one start in six weeks last year," reports Gurnick. "Garland has what has been described as shoulder inflammation, but sounds a lot more like a labrum or rotator cuff tear."
• Bill Plaschke of the Times talked to Kuo after his appearance and writes admiringly of the pitcher's efforts, but says he still seems unsettled.
• Juan Castro and Jay Gibbons have cleared waivers and been outrighted to Albuquerque, but they have the right to refuse the assignments and become free agents (or retire, which some have speculated Castro will do). This makes moot the confusion over why the Dodgers designated Gibbons for assignment three days before optioning Jerry Sands, but the fact remains that the Dodgers no longer believe in Gibbons. "Gibby wasn't giving us enough to basically have a guy that's pretty much one-dimensional," Don Mattingly told Dylan Hernandez of the Times. "He's not going to steal a bag for you. You have to defend for him."
• Dee Gordon's speed is the real deal, but the little guy is still going to need to improve his ability to hit line drives to succeed, argues Bill Petti of Beyond the Box Score.
• Tough realities: The Times is killing my favorite blog of theirs, historical chronicle Daily Mirror, because of low readership (criminally low readership, I'd say). That site was a pure treasure trove, with the latest treat being a series of reprints of Jim Murray columns in this, the 50th anniversary of his Times debut. Larry Harnisch and Keith Thursby put huge amounts of time and energy into the Daily Mirror, and I just want to thank them.

Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has an update on Hong-Chih Kuo:

... (Kuo) appears to have regained his command while throwing off a mound at the team's spring-training facility in Glendale, Ariz.

"He has been throwing a lot," Dodgers manager Ned Colletti said. "He is at about 90 percent intensity and having no problems with his command. We'll see where we go from here."

Colletti said Kuo eventually will face hitters in extended spring-training games, but that there is no target date for that to happen, nor is there a target date for Kuo to begin a minor league rehabilitation assignment, which would be a necessary precursor to him coming off the disabled list and rejoining the Dodgers bullpen. ...

Elsewhere ...

• Don Mattingly told reporters today that he expects Casey Blake to be activated by this weekend, and that Andre Ethier and Rod Barajas will end their day-to-day period and return to the starting lineup Friday.
• Josh Wilker writes about former Dodger Joe Simpson, Albuquerque and impending fatherhood at Cardboard Gods.
• While the Dodgers were winning in the great indoors of Houston, it got quite hairy at the Lone Star State's other major-league ballpark Tuesday.

As far as the result of tonight's game goes – a 2-0 shutout of Pittsburgh – as long as Hiroki Kuroda is pitching shutout ball for seven innings, not even giving in when he wild-pitched the tying runs into scoring position in bottom of the sixth, the Dodgers will do just fine. Now if Kuroda had committed the unforgivable sin of allowing two runs in his seven innings, it might have been another story ...

But the bigger news of the day wasn't the Dodgers' doubling their win streak to two, or Andre Ethier extending his on-base streak to 35 games, or Jerry Sands' RBI double following an intentional walk to Rod Barajas and his sub-.300 on-base percentage.

It was Hong-Chih Kuo being placed on the disabled list for the second time this season and sixth time in his career, for a period that is expected to be significantly longer than the 15-day minimum. From Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com:

... The official reason for the move was anxiety disorder, something that wasn't revealed by the club until 20 minutes before Wednesday night's game with the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park, well after media access to the clubhouse and manager Don Mattingly was customarily cut off until postgame.

In announcing the move to the media earlier, Mattingly was conspicuously vague in describing what is wrong with Kuo.

"There isn't much of the story I can really share with you today," Mattingly said. "We're just kind of waiting at this point for approval from Major League Baseball on the verbiage ... that we want to basically talk about." ...

... Through Monday, Kuo had pitched three times in four days. For the season, he has an uncharacteristic 11.57 ERA in nine appearances and an even more uncharacteristic six walks in 4 2/3 innings, albeit with eight strikeouts. Kuo said Tuesday that he felt fine physically and that he wasn't sure why he had been struggling so much with his command, and Mattingly said Tuesday that Kuo continued to tell team officials he felt fine physically."When you're talking about Kuo, he is basically always hurting," Mattingly said Wednesday. "It's just at what level. His elbow is always hurting. It never goes away, really. It's just how much he can deal with. It is always there. ... When I say he doesn't complain, it means that in talking with [trainer] Stan [Conte], when he says he is good to go, that means he can deal with it. His 'I'm OK to go' is different than being 100 percent.

"But he isn't good to go [now]."

Mattingly offered a definitive "no," when asked if Kuo was retiring, but he was noncommittal on whether Kuo might pitch again anytime soon. ...

Kuo's career has always been living on a thin line, and my appreciation for how much he has contributed to the team knows few bounds. I'm betting we haven't seen the last of him, but there's just no telling when we'll see him on the mound again.

Called up to replace Kuo is a man whose career hit a mighty big speed bump of its own last year, Scott Elbert. Elbert has got his strikeouts going, and will do as well as his control allows. Here's more from Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:

... In 14 1/3 innings, Elbert has issued nine walks with 16 strikeouts. Seven of his eight earned runs allowed have come in two appearances.

He said his problems generally occurred when he was asked to pitch a second inning of relief.

"Mentally, I was prepared for one inning, which was my fault," he said. "I should be prepared for anything."

Elbert has had six previous Major League callups, but he said this one is different.

"I feel more relaxed," he said. "It's something that comes with maturity and nature, if that's what it means to be special," he said. "I'm not a new face to them. I'm not working to try to do too much. Let them hit it and put it in play. I've grown up a little bit. A lot of it is seeing my two kids and having patience with them.

"I just have to be myself and not worry what anybody else things about me. It's part of growing up." ...

The Dodgers still might be forced to make another bullpen promotion, if Blake Hawksworth can't make a quick recovery from his groin injury (an MRI, reports Jackson, showed nothing serious).

The trade of Milton Bradley (and Antonio Perez) for Andre Ethier has often been cited as a great, maybe even the greatest, achievement by Ned Colletti as a Dodger general manager. What was impressive about the yield is that everyone knew that Colletti was under orders from up top (with the support of much of the Dodger fanbase, it should be said) to unload Bradley, after the outfielder reached the point of no return in his tumultuous two years with the Dodgers. It was the kind of trade that could easily have netted a prospect that would never sniff the majors.

The news comes up again because Bradley, who has generated a .649 OPS and lots of angst in his two seasons with Seattle, has been designated for assignment by the Mariners, possibly signaling the end of his major-league career.

My purpose is not to talk about Bradley, who has been discussed here at great length, but just point out how rare it has been that Colletti has ever tried to repeat the method of this trade — exchanging a veteran in his 20s, at or near his peak value, for prospects that could contribute down the road. (Bradley was 27 and coming off a .835 OPS season when Colletti traded him for Ethier in December 2005.)

Looking quickly at the Dodgers' transaction logs on Baseball-Reference.com, I can't find one similar deal in the Colletti era. The closest might be the trade of Juan Pierre for John Ely and Jon Link before the 2010 season, but Pierre was already 32 and into his decline phase when the trade occurred. If you want to make a case to include this, I won't stop you, but I'm not sure it qualifies.

It might come as no surprise that a team that regularly contends for the playoffs, like the Dodgers have under Colletti, has arguably not made a single boffo trade for a highly regarded prospect — even one who could have as much near-term impact as Ethier, who was in the majors months after the trade. But it's interesting. We used to wonder whether Colletti would use any of the Dodgers' exciting young players to get a proven veteran — will he ever again use a proven veteran to get any exciting young players? It did work for him before.

* * *

Bud Selig spoke to ESPN 1050 AM radio in New York about the Dodgers today:

... Selig was asked why he approved the deal that sold the Dodgers to McCourt in 2004 in the first place. Ironically, Fox had held controlling interest of the club beforehand.

"I'll tell you what happened. There's a lot of history here, which a lot of people don't seem to understand," Selig said. "There were two other bidders. Fox was anxious to get rid of the team. They were all really anxious. I'll tell you what happened. There were a couple of groups: A group led by Dave Checketts and another group. And for whatever reason, they weren't around at the end, so Fox sold the club to the McCourts and presented them to us. So this idea that we ought to examine ourselves, there was nobody else. We have a long relationship with Fox. There were no other bidders." ...

Selig said that MLB has added former Pittsburgh Pirates COO Richard Freeman to its team monitoring the Dodgers.

* * *

Dodger minor-leaguer Dee Gordon can be seen scoring from first base with Roadrunner speed on a sacrifice bunt and an error, in this video posted by Mike Petriello of Mike Scioscia's Tragic Illness. Albuquerque Isotopes play-by-play man Robert Portnoy has the call.

* * *

From the In Case You Missed It file: the torpedoes have been damned, and back-to-back outings for Hong-Chih Kuo have been approved. Hope for the best ...

The first part of the headline is the most important: The Dodgers get Hong-Chih Kuo back after a minor-league rehab appearance Friday (his third) in which he allowed no runs or walks and struck out two. But the more curious aspect is the second part, in which the Dodgers optioned reliever Kenley Jansen to Triple-A rather than cut loose back-of-the-bullpen reliever Lance Cormier. (Update: The Dodgers later issued a correction saying that Jansen has gone down to Double-A Chattanooga.)

Jansen has had two certifiably terrible outings, one April 2, the other April 19. But in has past three games, covering 4 2/3 innings, Jansen has allowed no hits, walked two and struck out nine. That makes Jansen the Dodgers' most effective reliever over the past week.

If this small sample size were all that Jansen had going for him, that'd be one thing, but the two bad outings in April are much more of an aberration in the Jansen oeuvre than what he's done recently. Jansen's career numbers remain strong: 2.90 ERA, 49 baserunners vs. 63 strikeouts in 40 1/3 innings.

Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com writes that the Dodgers want Jansen to develop a secondary pitch, and that the Dodgers value Cormier's role as a mop-up man, which is as damned with faint praise as you get. So what this boils down to is the Dodgers breaking more eggs in their bullpen, in the hopes that they'll bake a better cake in the long term. It's not the end of the world, but Jansen will be missed.

As long as Cormier's sticking around, can I suggest again that the Dodgers use the right-handed Cormier more against left-handed batters, a group he continues to have the most success against?

* * *

• Nice profile on Josh Fisher of Dodger Divorce by Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
• Not everyone from Texas loves MLB Dodger monitor Tom Schieffer, reports Phil Willon of the Times.

This looked like one of those balance-the-scales games – everything that went right for the Dodgers on Friday would go wrong today.

Then it looked like a testament to the Dodgers' resiliency over a tumultuous week.

In the end, it turned out to be one of those "Who knows, anything goes" contests we've seen time and again from the blue boys. The Dodgers stormed back from a 5-1 deficit to an 8-5 lead today in Chicago, before previously unscored-upon reliever Matt Guerrier allowed five smackers in the bottom of the eighth for a 10-8 Dodger loss.

Despite starting pitcher Ted Lilly allowing 11 hits to 23 batters, despite Jerry Sands losing a fly ball in the sun, despite two outfield misplays by Matt Kemp, despite the Dodgers picking off two runners in the fourth inning and throwing out neither, Los Angeles looked like it would roll to a four-game winning streak after rallying for seven unanswered runs from the fifth inning to the seventh.

Homers by Casey Blake (2 for 3, two walks, .962 OPS this season) and Kemp off Chicago's Ryan Dempster accounted for three runs in the top of the fifth inning, cutting the Cubs' lead to one. Then came a noteworthy decision by Cubs manager Mike Quade.

Lilly exited after allowing a one-out single in the bottom of the fifth, and Mike MacDougal walked two of the next three batters to load the bases. That brought up Dempster, who was coming off his rough top of the fifth and was already in the neighborhood of 90 pitches. Quade let Dempster bat, and though he nearly got away with it when MacDougal's wildness sent the count to 2-0 and 3-2, Dempster struck out swinging.

Dempster's next batter, Rod Barajas, homered to tie the game to start the sixth.

Perhaps the most dramatic moment came later in the inning. After Tony Gwynn Jr.'s pinch-triple and Casey Blake's two-out walk, Quade finally pulled Dempster in favor of lefty reliever Sean Marshall. Marshall faced Andre Ethier, who was 5 for 23 against left-handers this season. With his 19-game hitting streak was on the line. On a 1-2 pitch, Ethier lined a double to right field, scoring both runners and giving the Dodgers the lead.

Sands later helped manufacture the Dodgers' eighth run when he singled, stole second, went to third on a throwing error and scored on a Barajas groundout even though the infield was in.

Jemaine Clement-lookalike Vicente Padilla protected the lead in his season debut, retiring all three batters he faced in the sixth, and Guerrier sailed through the bottom of the seventh. But the Cubs pummeled Guerrier in the eighth.

Starlin Castro, the 21-year-old who went 4 for 5 to raise his season OPS to .947, drove in two, and then an RBI forceout by Darwin Barney tied the game. A bloop single by Aramis Ramirez extended the inning and knocked Guerrier out. Blake Hawkworth relieved, and gave up a two-run double to Baker to complete the eighth-inning disaster.

James Loney tried to tie the game in the ninth with a fly ball after Sands walked, but like his 2011 season, it fell far short. Carlos Marmol struck out Barajas, and the game was over.

Loney went 0 for 5, his on-base percentage falling to .191 and his slugging percentage to .212.

The Cubs continued their unprecedented run of early season .500 baseball. They have been 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, 8-8, 9-9 and now 10-10 this year. The Dodgers, meanwhile, fell to 11-11.

* * *

In case you weren't sure, Hector Gimenez's knee injury is legit. Gimenez, who was placed on the disabled list April 10 to (conveniently, it seemed) make room for the callup of John Ely, will have arthroscopic surgery next week. Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has details in a story that also heralds a minor-league rehab assignment for Hong-Chih Kuo and tells us about leg-soreness for Juan Uribe.

* * *

Here's Jackson's update from Don Mattingly on the controversial A.J. Ellis steal attempt from Friday:

... Mattingly, in his first year as Dodgers manager, confirmed it was a mix-up but defended a running play in that situation.

"Long story short, we missed the sign," Mattingly said. "We weren't trying to run there. Definitely weren't going to run A.J. We weren't doing it but it is Wrigley and the other day we did give up eight runs in the ninth. We're trying to win a game, but we weren't running there." ...

With what happened today, I suggested Quade issue a retroactive approval of the steal attempt.

A lower-back strain has knocked Hong-Chih Kuo off the abled list. Tony Jackson of ESPNLosAngeles.com has details, including the "oh, of course" news that Kuo has been "bothered by back discomfort all season."

Ramon Troncoso has been recalled to join the Dodgers' now all-righty bullpen.

Outside of the left-field conundrum, the Dodgers' biggest question mark for Spring Training might be how they will address the task of getting left-handed batters out with their almost completely right-handed bullpen. No one wants to see Hong-Chih Kuo relegated to facing only lefties, and the only other left-handed thrower on the 40-man roster is the uncertain Scott Elbert.

Three non-roster invitees to major-league camp are left-handed: 39-year-old Ron Mahay, achy-hamstringed Dana Eveland (whose career 5.74 ERA will apparently be sidelined for weeks after Thursday's injury) and Wilkin De La Rosa, who has never pitched about Double-A. After that, you start dipping down into the minors for developing players like James Adkins.

With Ronald Belisario's absence seemingly opening up a roster spot, Mahay would seem to be the default candidate. He had a .520 OPS allowed against lefties last season. But the previous two seasons, his OPS allowed against lefties was above .700 — which isn't terrible, but isn't exactly the kind of authoritative performance you're looking for when you really want someone to come in and get that guy out.

I got to wondering if there were any righties among the Dodger relievers who were reliable against lefties. Here's a chart of the bullpen candidates' OPS allowed against lefties over the past three seasons in the majors:

	2010 PA/	2010 OPS		2009 PA/	2009 OPS		2008 PA/	2008 OPS
Belisario	86	.793		122	.720
Broxton	123	.626		148	.414		126	.800
Colon	5	.650		94	.713
Cormier	162	.718		180	.671		144	.667
Elbert	4	2.000		40	.699		14	1.000
Eveland	59	.802		60	.999		170	.646
Guerrier	102	.649		120	.525		126	.801
Hawksworth	185	.886		76	.724
Jansen	51	.586
Kuo	69	.271		40	.524		98	.557
Link	16	.962
MacDougal	39	1.353		124	.760		24	.858
Mahay	68	.520		111	.743		110	.721
Monasterios	188	.709
Padilla	166	.590		352	.837		385	.944
Redding				282	.860		402	.808
Schlichting	39	.465		9	.905
Troncoso	99	.823		157	.751		84	.707
Villarreal							68	.862

Some observations:

• The Dodgers have a few righties who seem consistently effective against their opposite numbers: Jonathan Broxton, Matt Guerrier and, based on a small sample size, Kenley Jansen.
• Oh, and another guy who probably isn't on your radar ... late signee Lance Cormier.
• Based on only his one season, Carlos Monasterios offers an intriguing first impression — though looking at the chart, you can see how much these numbers can fluctuate. Look at what happened to Ramon Troncoso, for example, or moving in the other direction, Vicente Padilla.
• For extreme small-sample candidates, there's Roman Colon and Travis Schlichting. Consider at your own risk.

If the Dodgers decide that Kuo, Broxton, Guerrier, Jansen and Padilla are all effective against lefties, they could decide to go without a second left-handed pitcher — especially if they also think Cormier is worth a roster slot. It might still be Mahay's spot to lose or Scott Elbert's spot to win, but Cormier might be this year's guy you least expected.