Hundley Is on Disabled List

While Kevin Brown showed Sunday that he’s clearly back to full strength after a three-week bout with an upper respiratory virus, injuries have taken a toll elsewhere on the Dodger roster.

Backup catcher Todd Hundley was put on the 15-day disabled list because of inflammation of the sciatic nerve in his lower back, and pitcher Darren Dreifort, who injured his right knee Saturday night, will undergo an MRI test today.

The Dodgers recalled catcher David Ross from triple-A Las Vegas and made another move to replace Hundley’s left-handed bat, recalling first baseman/outfielder Larry Barnes from Las Vegas and optioning utility player Jason Romano to triple A.

Hundley, who is batting .200 with eight runs batted in, has battled lower-back problems for several years and periodically this season, but he was in so much pain Sunday, “I felt kind of paralyzed,” he said.

Hundley will undergo tests today to determine how his lower-back muscles are responding to nerves, and he will begin a physical therapy program.

“It’s better to lose two weeks now than to blow it out and be out for four months,” Hundley said. “The best thing for me now is to get this thing right.”

Ross was batting .221 with five home runs and 16 RBIs at Las Vegas and is considered an excellent defensive catcher. Barnes was hitting .290 with seven homers and 26 RBIs.

*

Dreifort feels no trepidation about today’s MRI test on a knee that has been operated on three times, most recently last August.

“At this point, getting an MRI is like getting a cup of coffee,” said Dreifort, who tweaked the knee in the sixth inning of Saturday night’s 4-1 victory. “I’ve had enough of them to know you don’t go in there expecting the worst.”

Dreifort has also had two major elbow surgeries and one surgery on his left knee. By his count, he’s had “around 20 MRIs total.”

Though the pain in his knee is not in the area of last year’s surgery, there is something a little perplexing about his most recent setback.

“I don’t know what to expect because this is something totally different than before,” Dreifort said. “No one seems overly concerned about it, so that’s good.”

With the Dodgers off today, Dreifort’s next start had been pushed back to Saturday in Montreal.

Manager Jim Tracy said no roster move or rotation shift will be made until the MRI results are evaluated.

If Dreifort’s injury sends him to the disabled list, the Dodgers probably would move reliever Andy Ashby to the rotation and recall left-hander Wilson Alvarez, who is 3-0 with a 1.13 earned-run average at Las Vegas.

*

Paul Lo Duca, whose RBI single in the sixth inning Sunday tied the score, 1-1, spent part of the morning on the phone with Brandon Quinn, an Agoura High baseball player who has leukemia. Quinn had sent a letter to the Dodgers requesting to speak with the catcher.

“I’ve dealt with it -- my mom had cancer,” Lo Duca said. “[Brandon] is in remission and doing better. I told him any time he needs something to give me a call, and I invited him to a game. It’s nothing big. It’s something you should do.”

*

Batting instructor Jack Clark, still feeling the effects of a concussion suffered in a motorcycle accident March 30, has not been medically cleared to travel and will not accompany the team on this week’s trip to New York and Montreal.