Josh Lindblom promoted to big-league camp
De Jon Watson informed him this morning. Haven't had a chance to ask Torre yet, but this probably means Lindblom, last year's second-round pick out of Purdue, is at least COMPETING for a spot on the opening-day roster, even if he is a long shot to get one. You may recall that both Clayton Kershaw (who turns 21 today, by the way) and Blake DeWitt were promoted from the minor-league side in the middle of camp last spring, and both of them wound up in the big leagues during the season, with DeWitt actually making the team out of camp in starting at 3B on opening day. Lindblom was a dominating closer his junior season at Purdue, but the Dodgers immediately sent him straight to low Single-A and immediately set about converting him to starting, which he had done in high school, as a freshman at Tennessee and for most of his sophomore season at Purdue. Not sure yet which role he'll be pitching in the rest of this spring, but the Dodgers need help with both.
I suspect that he will work out of the pen for the remainder of the spring, and open the minor league season at AA as a starter. That is, unless the Dodgers are actually considering him as a candidate to open the season in the big league rotation.
Being a reader of Baseball America, this is not completely surprising. I read accounts over the winter that mentioned him as a candidate to spend time with Dodgers in 2009. After all, having been drafted out of college, he is about a year older than Kershaw (Lindblom will be 22 in June).