Calendar becomes Matt Kemp’s great enemy

I kicked butt in basic math. No kidding, sabermetric lovers, I was a star. Would take those national math tests, score in the 98 percentile and take bows as my name was read aloud to my awed middle school classmates.

Then I went to high school and took algebra, and that was the end of my stardom and the beginning of hiding in the back of class.

Still, I need only call on those pre-high school skills to formulate that Matt Kemp is about out of time.

Dodgers Manager Don Mattingly told reporters in Cincinnati before Sunday night’s game against the Reds that Stan Conte, the team’s vice president of medical services, said Kemp will need at least 10 more days to be ready for a game.

Kemp’s comeback from an ankle sprain was set back Friday when his right hamstring tightened up again.

Kemp has played in only one of the Dodgers’ last 56 games, and when was last seen, was going 0 for 18 in a rehab assignment against Class-A pitchers. Now he’s at the Dodgers’ training facility in Arizona, trying to get ready before the season ends.

If he does not suffer an additional setback and still needs 10 days to get ready, he would be first available to the Dodgers on Sept. 18. Such a math wiz.

That would leave 11 games in the season to play before the postseason begins. Since he basically hasn’t played in two months, that’s little time to evaluate his swing. And they aren’t going to have him play every day after being out so long. There is only one day off in the final two weeks.

Sunday rain forced Kemp indoors in Phoenix, so he was only able to take batting practice. There has been no running to test his hamstring.

Time is becoming precious. Even if you’re of the mind that the way the Dodgers have been playing they might be better off right now without him, if you think the Dodgers are a World Series team, that’s a potential four games in which they will need a designated hitter.

They need to know whether Kemp can be Kemp, but the calendar, and my excellent math, are working against him.