No panic by Dodgers over woes in St. Louis
Disheartening? Yes. Alarming? No.
So the Dodgers summed up their dreary start after the All-Star game, in which they lost four consecutive games to the Cardinals in St. Louis.
“I don’t think guys are really down at all,” third baseman Casey Blake said Monday after the team returned to Dodger Stadium to play the San Francisco Giants and open a seven-game homestand. “We know there are a lot of games left to play.”
Rafael Furcal, the Dodgers’ All-Star shortstop, said rebounding from the sweep was similar to emerging from a hitting slump.
The key is to “worry about winning one game, go one for one,” he said. “You get a little blooper [of a hit] and it helps you keep going. That’s what we need.”
Manager Joe Torre said that “you lose four in a row, it takes a little wind out of your sails, especially when we felt we were going pretty good” going into the All-Star break.
“As dark as it seems now, you put about three or four wins together and all of a sudden the whole environment changes,” he said. “We just need to sort of get our confidence back.”
Injury update
Outfielder Manny Ramirez remained “unavailable” because of continued tightness in his right calf, and the slugger was scheduled to have an MRI exam Tuesday to assess the problem, Torre said.
“He felt a little better yesterday, today he feels it when he’s out there running,” Torre said.
Asked whether Ramirez would have to return to the disabled list, Torre said, “I hope not, but we’ll wait until tomorrow and let them tell us what they see.”
But James Loney started again at first base after sitting out Sunday’s game because of a leg cramp in the high heat and humidity in St. Louis. After doing pregame running and stretching drills, Loney said he felt fine.
Torre was more cautious, saying Loney “still feels it. It doesn’t look like it’s a hamstring issue, I think it’s still what’s left over from that spasm he had and that was caused by the heat. If he tightens up . . . then we’ll make a change.”
Catcher Russell Martin also returned to the lineup after sitting out two games because of a sore left thumb.
“I don’t remember exactly when it happened, I don’t think it was like one pitch,” Martin said of his injury. “I kind of banged it up on a pitch and then just catching every day, every day, after a while it started to worsen. Now it’s better.”
And reserve outfielder Reed Johnson, who went on the 15-day DL because of a back strain effective July 9, played catch before Monday’s game and said, “I feel great right now.”
“I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t be back the day I come off” the DL, Johnson said, but added that he’d “like to get a couple of [rehab] games under my belt because there’s no guarantee that when I come back I would play right away.”
And finally
Tuesday night’s game against the Giants is Loney’s bobblehead night. … Wilmer Colmenarez, a pitcher in the Dodgers’ Dominican Summer League, received a 50-game suspension after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance, Major League Baseball said.
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