Ailing Andre Ethier leaves Dodgers, availability for playoffs remains up in the air.

Andre EthierAndre Ethier left the Dodgers briefly Wednesday to have MRI and CT scans on his sprained left ankle in Los Angeles. The team announced that the sprain hasn’t healed, and Ethier won’t be cleared to play until he is able to run the bases without pain.

Ethier attempted to run the bases below full speed prior to Tuesday’s game in San Francisco, but cut the session short. His availability for the playoffs is still to be determined.

The National League Division Series begins Oct. 3.

Dodgers draw Barry Zito in their penultimate game against the San Francisco Giants.

Barry Zito

Barry Zito is replacing Madison Bumgarner on the mound for the Giants tonight. (Getty Images)


Veteran Giants left-hander Barry Zito is starting in place of Madison Bumgarner against the Dodgers tonight in San Francisco.

The Giants’ decision to shut down Bumgarner after 31 (mostly good) starts should be a good one for the Dodgers. Zito (4-11) is closing the books on the worst of his 14 major-league seasons and almost certainly his last as a Giant. It’s an important start. It also closes the book on the landmark case against overpaying for a free-agent pitcher with a declining strikeout rate in the middle of his career. To wit: Zito never had an ERA-plus below 100 in seven seasons with the A’s. He signed a seven-year, $126 million contract with San Francisco at age 28 and never posted an ERA-plus above 100 as a Giant.

For the Dodgers, the implications are more subtle.

The starting infield of Michael Young, Skip Schumaker, Nick Punto and Jerry Hairston Jr. is auditioning for jobs in the playoffs. Of the four, Hairston (.370/.541/.630) and Schumaker (.368/.368/.526) have enjoyed considerable success against Zito, while Punto (.286/.286/.286) and Young (.236/.292/.315) have not.

Ricky Nolasco will make what is likely his final regular-season start for the Dodgers. Nolasco has struggled in his last two starts, including a Sept. 14 game against the Giants in which he allowed five earned runs in 1 ⅓ innings — the shortest start of his career. He might still be the Dodgers’ number-three starter in the playoffs depending on the matchup; no announcement has been made beyond Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke pitching games 1 and 2. A good start here might be his last chance to get untracked before October.

Here are the full lineups for both teams:
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St. Louis Cardinals’ gain is the Dodgers’ loss.

The Dodgers’ chances of securing home-field advantage for the first two rounds of the playoffs took another step backward Wednesday.

The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Washington Nationals 4-1, giving them the best record in the National League at 94-65. The Atlanta Braves, who host the moribund Milwaukee Brewers tonight, are in a virtual tie at 93-64.

The Dodgers (91-66) are two games behind those teams with five games left in the regular season. If they are able to tie either team in the standings, the Dodgers have the advantage over the Cardinals based on their head-to-head record (4-3) but not the Braves (2-5).

If the standings don’t change, the Cardinals would host the Dodgers in Game 1 on Oct. 3.

The Dodgers had the best-selling series and the second-best selling game on StubHub in 2013.

The Dodgers lead Major League Baseball in attendance, so it’s no surprise that they have performed well on the secondary ticket market in 2013.

According to figures compiled by StubHub, the official secondary ticket site for MLB, the Dodgers sold more tickets than any other team on the site this season. Dodger ticket sales increased by 76 percent during the second half of the season, the second-highest increase of any team behind only the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The two-game Dodgers-Yankees series on July 30-31 was the most popular series on StubHub all season, while the Dodgers’ season opener against the San Francisco Giants was the second-highest selling game on StubHub all year. The Yankees-Red Sox in New York was number one.

Daily Distractions: The importance of Hyun-Jin Ryu’s seven innings Tuesday night.

Hyun-Jin Ryu

Hyun-Jin Ryu held the Giants to four hits and one run in seven innings on Tuesday. (Associated Press photo)

Our blogs were down yesterday. Sorry everyone. A dedicated team of top men in Denver patched things up in the middle of the night.

If this blog space were available during last night’s game, Hyun-Jin Ryu would have been the star.

Ryu will finish the season 14-7 with a 2.97 earned-run average, but he won’t win the National League Rookie of the Year award. Jose Fernandez has been a better pitcher and Yasiel Puig has made a bigger impact on his team than either Ryu or Fernandez.

But at some point last night I recalled filling out a brief survey back in spring training. A Korean reporter went around the press box at Camelback Ranch and asked each of the Dodgers beat writers to predict what Ryu’s won-loss record and earned-run average would be. I think I put down something quite average, say 11-11 and 3.70, simply because I couldn’t commit to the idea of Ryu being excellent or awful based on what little I knew at the time. Obviously, he’s been very good.

One recent exception had been Ryu’s ability to perform on long rest. Pitching on 11 days’ rest on Sept. 11 against the Diamondbacks, he was fairly awful, throwing 88 pitches and getting only three swings-and-misses. Ryu wound up allowing 10 hits and three runs in six innings (some double plays helped) but was the losing pitcher in a 13-6 drubbing.

Prior to that, Ryu last pitched on extra rest July 22 in Toronto. He labored through 5 ⅓ innings, throwing 102 pitches and again fooling few (seven swings-and-misses).

Why is this important?

If he doesn’t pitch the final game of the regular season Sept. 29, the next time Ryu starts will probably be Game 3 or 4 of the postseason, depending on how the Dodgers line up their rotation (and depending on if there is a Game 4; if the Dodgers are swept in the first round, we might not see Ryu until 2014). Even if he does pitch in turn Sept. 29, he’ll have six or seven days before his first playoff start.

If he doesn’t pitch Sept. 29 — and the Dodgers aren’t swept — Ryu might have as many as 12 games’ rest before his next start. That Ryu could take 11 days off and limit the Giants to one run over seven innings on Tuesday wasn’t just necessary to win the game, it was necessary to show he can survive a long layoff. That has to inspire a fair amount of confidence among Ryu’s teammates, manager and front office.

Remember too, this isn’t any pitcher we’re talking about — Ryu had never thrown a between-starts bullpen session before coming to America from South Korea late last year. He still hasn’t thrown off a mound between starts, except when tuning up following an injury. I believe that’s happened twice all season.

That said, don’t be surprised if Ryu pitches a simulated game or an extended bullpen session five days from now just to stay sharp. Don’t be surprised if he survives his first test in the playoffs, either.

Some bullet points for a Wednesday:
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