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Dodgers in good shape despite pitching woes
- Updated: August 19, 2016
PHILADELPHIA — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sat behind the desk in his office at Citizens Bank Park long before Thursday night’s 5-4 loss to the Phillies and pored over some papers.
Roberts was already shuffling around off-days in the club’s tentative 2017 schedule. Plus, there were some perspective blue lineup cards for this weekend’s series in Cincinnati with names written in ink.
“I like to get ahead,” the first-year skipper said.
In Roberts’s mind’s eye, he’d really like to envision the Dodgers’ starting rotation for late September: Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill, Scott Kazmir, Kenta Maeda and either Bud Norris or Brandon McCarthy.
The Dodgers are well-situated right now. They are in first place in the National League West, but a lot of things have to happen before that rotation takes shape. Roberts doesn’t even have a starter yet to face the Reds on Sunday.
Roberts has Kershaw, with a herniated disk in his lower back, getting back on the mound to throw a light bullpen session on Saturday at Great America Ballpark.
The good thing about Kershaw is that he’s pain free.
“We wouldn’t continue to move forward if he wasn’t,” Roberts said. “We feel good where he’s at right now.”
Hill, with a seemingly perpetual blister on his left middle finger, threw a simulated rehab start on Thursday night at the team’s Camelback Ranch Spring Training complex in Phoenix.
These are small steps and there’s no way of knowing right now where any of it will lead. Kershaw has been out since his last start on June 26. Hill was obtained from the A’s, arriving with the injury, and hasn’t pitched since July 17 for Oakland.
Norris, returning from a stint on the disabled list with a mild back strain, is slated to start on Friday night.
Brett Anderson is getting another crack at it Saturday. Anderson missed more than five months because of back surgery and had to leave his first start after one inning this past Sunday with a sprained left wrist after diving to field a dribbler back …
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