For some reason, there is one here today, a seven-piece mariachi band playing near the main (centerfield) entrance to the stadium. Although it’s a White Sox game today, it provided a nice, mood-setting backdrop as the Dodgers worked out on the back fields before boarding a bus for Mesa. According to Joe Torre, who was here at 10 til 7 this morning, Manny Ramirez was already out on the field running sprints with conditioning coach Brendan Huttman when Joe arrived. Manny will NOT be going to Mesa today. According to one of my more morning-oriented colleagues, who was in the clubhouse long before I straggled in at 8:30, when Matt Kemp walked into the clubhouse this morning, Manny greeted him with, “I was here at 6 a.m., where were you?” To which the ever-witty Kemp responded with, “I was here three weeks ago.” … By the way, as we suspected, Randy Wolf is batting second because Joe wants him to get at-bats, so this is probably going to be a regular thing now that pitchers are hitting. I also asked Joe, just casually on the back fields this morning, if he would ever consider settling the issue of Manny batting third of fourth by going the Tony La Russa route and batting his pitcher eighth. Joe didn’t totally dismiss it, saying it might be an option on days when Juan Pierre plays because then you could bat Pierre ninth and thus have three table setters batting immediately ahead of Manny in the three hole.