Rubby De La Rosa looks like what was touted

Reporting from Minneapolis — When Dioner Navarro was activated from the disabled list in late April, he raved about a young pitcher he saw while on a minor-league rehabilitation assignment.

The kid could throw 100 mph, Navarro said. He was fearless. He threw strikes.

The kid’s name was Rubby De La Rosa.

De La Rosa was promoted to the major leagues in late May to replace a sidelined Jon Garland in the Dodgers’ rotation, but he didn’t look like the pitcher Navarro and front-office executives described.

Until Wednesday.

The 22-year-old right-hander from the Dominican Republic dropped his third consecutive start in a 1-0 defeat to the Minnesota Twins, but he resembled the star Navarro promised he would be.

Over a career-high seven innings, De La Rosa limited the Minnesota Twins to a run and six hits. He struck out four.

Most important: He threw 99 pitches and walked a season-low two batters.

“He attacked the strike zone and made them swing the bats,” Manager Don Mattingly said.

The control problems that plagued him in his previous four starts were absent.

“I worked a lot on my mechanics in the past week,” De La Rosa said.

De La Rosa’s only misstep was in the first inning, which he started by serving up a triple to Ben Revere. The leadoff man scored on a soft groundout to De La Rosa by Tsuyoshi Nishioka.

Bounced checks

Some security guards and ushers who work at Dodger Stadium were told this week by their banks that their latest paychecks had bounced.

The reason: The Dodgers had filed for bankruptcy Monday.

A team spokesman said in a written statement that the Dodgers’ bank accounts were frozen for 48 hours upon the bankruptcy filing. The affected part-time employees were issued new paychecks Wednesday and the team assured them that it would reimburse them the check-bouncing fee charged by their banks.

Players and full-time front-office employees were unaffected.

On the brink

Online balloting for the All-Star Game at mlb.com concludes at 8:59 p.m. PDT Thursday.

After the last round of balloting, Matt Kemp ranked fourth among NL outfielders. Kemp was 192,038 votes behind Matt Holliday of the Cardinals, who was in third place and in line for the final starting outfield spot.

Short hops

Fernando Valenzuela will throw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Dodgers’ game in Anaheim on Friday. The pitch will be caught by Angels Manager Mike Scioscia, his longtime catcher with the Dodgers. Valenzuela pitched two games for the Angels in 1991.… Triple-A Albuquerque outfielder Trayvon Robinson and pitcher Dana Eveland were named to the Pacific Coast League All-Star team, which will face the International League All-Stars in the Triple-A All-Star Game. Albuquerque Manager Lorenzo Bundy will manage the PCL team.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com