Dodgers’ Arizona dance card filling up fast

Chalk up another one. I was alerted this morning that the Diamondbacks will release their spring sked on Monday, and that the Dodgers are on it for March 21 at Tucson Electric Park. That makes four Cactus League games that appear to be flnalized — March 20 against the White Sox, March 21 against the D-Backs, March 23 against the Rockies and March 26 against the Royals. Meanwhile, I got a call earlier this week from a Dodgers club official who swears none of this is finalized, that the team still isn’t officially going to China and that MLB has TWO spring training schedules, one for if the Dodgers/Padres go to China and the Dodgers finish the spring in Arizona and one for if that doesn’t happen, which presumably would mean the Dodgers spend the whole spring in Vero. But I perused all the schedules of all the Florida teams that have released theirs (including those on the Gulf Coast, whom the Dodgers never play), and in fairness, many of them have not released theirs yet. But of the ones who have, the latest scheduled game the Dodgers have in Florida so far is March 18 against the Marlins at Roger Dean Stadium in Jupiter. Given that the China games are set for March 14-15 in Beijing (with two exhibitions in Taiwan tentatively scheduled to follow), that would seem to suggest March 19 as the date when the entire team — both the half that goes to China and the half that stays behind in Vero — would congregate in PHX for the final eight days of camp before returning to Los Angeles for those four exhibitions with the Angels (one) and Red Sox (three). But hey, none of this is official yet (wink, wink).