Dodgers 10, Angels 8: Postgame thoughts.

Don Mattingly dropped a revealing opinion, perhaps unexpectedly, in his postgame chat today.

It appeared that, an hour earlier, Ted Lilly had done an OK job in two innings out of the bullpen in his first appearance of spring training. Keep in mind that Lilly hadn’t pitched in a competitive game since Aug. 16 of last year. The veteran lefty got Erick Aybar to fly out, got rocked by Howie Kendrick (who finished 3-for-3 with a single, double and home run) for a longball, then retired the next four Angel batters he faced. Day over.

“Teddy, he seems a lot more like Aaron (Harang) to me, from my point of view,” Mattingly said. “Taking longer to get loose, taking longer to warm up, all that kind of stuff.”

In other words, not a good bullpen candidate.

That would seem to make Chris Capuano, by default, the Dodgers’ preferred choice to move from the rotation to the bullpen at this point in time. This is a point in time when eight starters are healthy, so take that with a grain of salt. Things can change in the next four weeks.

At the very least Mattingly’s opinion offers a framework for what the Dodgers might be thinking — stash Capuano in the bullpen as a sixth starter, and if Billingsley ends up needing Tommy John surgery (or another starter goes down in spring), insert either Lilly or Harang into the fifth starter’s slot. Otherwise, try to move one or both pitchers. That would agree with what I’ve heard from knowledgeable people outside the organization; people inside the organization have no reason to tip their hand pre-flop.

Lilly had to feel good about his performance regardless of how the manager reacted to it. It’s been a long time coming.
Some more notes:

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Tom Wright, a 54-year-old knuckleballer, is trying to make the Dodgers.

Tom Wright

I spent Thursday afternoon talking up two open-tryout participants on the back field at Camelback Ranch. One was disabled Navy veteran Doc Jacobs, whose story will appear in tomorrow’s editions. The other was Tom Wright, a 54-year-old high school teacher from Hawaii (via Livermore, California), whose story appears below.

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With first game in sight, Matt Kemp is ahead of Carl Crawford in Dodgers’ camp.

Matt Kemp

Dodgers manager Don Mattingly admitted that Matt Kemp is close to playing in his first spring training game, but the manager did everything in his power to avoid saying when that game will be.

There was no tiptoeing around when Carl Crawford would see the field: It won’t be for a while after his scheduled hitting session against live pitching Thursday was cancelled.

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Luis Cruz returns to Dodgers after illness, doesn’t think it’s contagious.

Luis CruzA year ago, a stomach bug ripped through the Dodgers clubhouse in spring training, sidelining players and reporters alike for a couple days at a time.

Dodgers third baseman Luis Cruz had a nasty one earlier this week, with the worst of his symptoms coming Tuesday morning. He’s back in the lineup this afternoon against the Angels.

Cruz doesn’t believe this will be a repeat of last year’s team-wide ailment, however. He said Thursday that he’s “pretty sure” he got sick by eating at a local organic seafood restaurant with his family Monday night. Cruz ordered the soup.

Report: Guggenheim isn’t interested in AEG purchase. Why that’s good for Dodgers fans.

Fortune magazine is profiling Guggenheim Partners in its March 18 print edition, and you can read the article online here. It’s worth the 20 minutes.

There’s quite a bit of background on Guggenheim and very little of it has to do with baseball. Mark Walter and Todd Boehly are not baseball men — they’re money men — and Fortune paints a broad picture of how they’ve gone about their business. The company (and by extension, the entity that owns the Dodgers) is connected to the original Guggenheim family and its eponymous museum in a real way; Fortune explains how Walter and Boehly expanded their empire with some shrewd purchases during the 2008 recession and afterward.

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