Dodgers’ Matt Kemp is back on disabled list with pain in shoulder
PHOENIX — Matt Kemp returned to the disabled list Monday, this time because of an irritated joint in his surgically repaired left shoulder. The Dodgers recalled Scott Van Slyke from triple-A Albuquerque to replace him on the active roster.
Kemp missed 24 games because of a strained right hamstring this season. He was less than three weeks removed the end of that DL stint.
The Dodgers’ medical staff still doesn’t consider Kemp’s most recent shoulder injury serious, Manager Don Mattingly said. The part of the shoulder that is irritated is different from the part on which Kemp had surgery in the off-season.
Kemp injured the shoulder on a swing-and-miss Friday night in San Francisco. He still felt pain when he tried taking early batting practice Monday at Chase Field. Because he already missed two games and would have to miss at least a few more to visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles, the Dodgers decided to put him on the DL retroactively to Saturday rather than continue to play with a 24-man roster.
“It’s going to take more than a couple days, I would think,” Kemp said. “I want to play at 100%. I don’t want to play at 70, 80. I’m not good when I’m 70, 80%. I might be all right, but I want to be really good.”
The earliest Kemp could return would be on July 21, the Dodgers’ third game after the All-Star break.
Kemp, who is batting a modest .254, hit home runs in the two games leading up to his injury.
“I actually started feeling really good at the plate the last three or four games before that happened,” he said. “Hopefully, I just don’t lose that feeling.”
Fife also sidelined
Stephen Fife also landed on the DL. Fife has shoulder inflammation, the same ailment that landed him on the DL in late April.
Fife’s roster spent was taken by Ricky Nolasco, who was acquired Saturday from the Miami Marlins.
Chris Capuano, who was dropped from the rotation when the Dodgers traded for Nolasco, will start in Fife’s place Thursday. The start probably will be the only one missed by Fife, because the All-Star break will take up four of the 15 days he must be inactive.
Nolasco reports
Nolasco joined his new teammates at Chase Field, where he is scheduled to make his Dodgers debut Tuesday. He said a group of 20 family members and friends travel from Southern California to watch him pitch.
Nolasco grew up in Rialto and estimates he attended 15 to 20 games a season at Dodger Stadium. His father, a sheet-metal mechanic, used to receive loge-level tickets from his boss. He said he was there when Kevin Gross pitched a no-hitter in 1992 and his childhood idols were Ramon Martinez and Chan Ho Park.
Nolasco, 30, will be a free agent this winter. But he said he would like to make Dodger Stadium his long-term home.
“This is the team I grew up rooting for and going to games for,” Nolasco said.
Short hops
Yasiel Puig trailed Freddie Freeman of the Atlanta Braves in online balloting for the final spot on the National League All-Star team. Voting, which is being conducted at mlb.com, ends Thursday at 1 p.m. … Mattingly and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt watched recently acquired reliever Carlos Marmol pitch in a simulated game at the Dodgers’ spring-training complex in Phoenix. Marmol will pitch Wednesday for Class-A Rancho Cucamonga. … Dick Gray, who hit the Dodgers’ first home run after their move to Los Angeles in 1958, died. He was 81.
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