Sweeney not activated
Mark Sweeney becme eligible to come off the DL today, but doing so would have meant cutting back to 11 pitchers the day after Joe Torre needed eight of them to get through an 11-inning game, so the decision was made to wait. Meanwhile, Juan Pierre continues to improve. He did some running on the field early today, and Torre said he could be ready either to begin a rehab assignment or possibly even to rejoin the Dodgers as early as the next couple of weeks. ... One thing I forgot to mention in today's paper about last night's game was the play Blake DeWitt made to save the game and send it to extras. D-backs on first and third and two outs in the ninth, Augie Ojeda shoots a smash up the 3B line. DeWitt snared it on a vicious hop, planted and threw Ojeda out at first by no more than two steps. ... Here's tonight's lineup, with Andruw sitting one more day with flulike symptoms because Torre didn't want to risk having to replace him in-game like he did last night. Jones is available off the bench.
CF Kemp
RF Ethier
C Martin
2B Kent
SS Garciaparra
1B Loney
LF Young
3B DeWitt
RH Billingsley
Blake DeWitt is the Dodgers' "human highlight reel"! That play last night was unbelieveable! If he can get his hitting on track again, LaRoche won't see much playing time the rest of the year at third base... especially with Andy's continued "first ball" swinging almost every time he comes up.
LaRoche won't see any action if Torre and Colletti have their way. He is in their doghouse along with Tony Abreu and they will never get a chance to play for this club. Nothing against DeWitt, he just can't hit enough to play third. They should be training him to play second or short, I think he's capable of it.