Read More: Jerry Hairston Jr. (SS – LOS), Jamey Wright (P – LOS), Tony Gwynn Jr. (LF – LOS), Chad Billingsley (P – LOS), Tim Lincecum (P – SFG), A.J. Ellis (C – LOS), Scott Van Slyke (RF – LOS), San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants at Los Angeles Dodgers, May 9, 2012 7:10 PM PDT

The Los Angeles Dodgers rallied for four runs in the bottom of the fourth inning off Tim Lincecum to help defeat the San Francisco Giants 6-2 at Dodger Stadium Wednesday night in the final game of a three-game series between the two rivals. The key blow for the Dodgers was a bases-loaded triple by Tony Gwynn Jr. that turned a one-run deficit into a two-run Dodgers advantage.

Chad Billingsley had allowed two runs in four innings to that point, but was wild with four walks and had thrown 85 pitches. Manager Don Mattingly decided to pull his starter in favor of Gwynn, a move that paid off handsomely for the Dodgers.

“At that point, he’s at 85 pitches, it’s a 2-1 game. We’ve got a chance to score a run. At most he’s got one more inning,” Mattingly said.

Jamey Wright pitched two perfect innings, striking out three, for his second win of the season, and was able to bridge the gap to the back end of the Dodgers bullpen.

“We were able to grab that momentum there, and Jamey Wright came in and shut the door. His two innings were huge,” Mattingly said.

Scott Van Slyke, making his major league debut, picked up a pinch hit RBI single in the sixth inning to score A.J. Ellis, becoming the first Dodger in 51 years to pick up a pinch-hit RBI in his first major league at-bat.

“I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I’d be,” Van Slyke said. “Stepping into the box I wanted to get that first swing out of the way to calm my nerves.”

MRI results for Jerry Hairston Jr. showed a strained left hamstring that might land the utility man on the disabled list. The Dodgers will discuss what to do with Hairston on their off day Thursday, before the Colorado Rockies come to town on Friday. Hairston, who suffered the injury Sunday in Chicago, has missed the last three games.

“I’m holding out hope, but I want to be smart,” Hairston said after the game. “If it’s going to take 10 days to heal or 14-15 days, you’d rather take that especially this time of the year, than running the risk of blowing it out and missing two months.”

For more news and notes about the Dodgers, be sure to read True Blue LA.

CBSSports.com wire reports
May 10, 2012

LOS ANGELES — Tony Gwynn Jr. had just gotten into the batting cage and was starting to take swings when he heard his name called as a pinch-hitter.

He worked the count against Tim Lincecum before roping a go-ahead three-run triple one inning after San Francisco’s Nate Schierholtz ran into a critical out that helped kill a Giants rally and the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers went on to a 6-2 victory Wednesday night.

“I was sucking wind over there,” Gwynn said about his sprint around the bases with little warm-up. “He left a couple balls up and he was missing with his spots a little bit.”

The Dodgers have won six of their past seven series at home heading into a day off Thursday before Colorado arrives for a weekend series.

Jamey Wright (2-2) pitched two perfect innings and struck out two for the victory.

“That’s a key right there,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “His two innings were huge.”

Lincecum (2-3) gave up four runs and eight hits in five innings. He struck out eight, including NL home run leader Matt Kemp three times, and walked two in losing for the first time since April 16 against Philadelphia.

The right-hander extended his winless streak against the Dodgers to 0-4 dating to last season. The two-time NL Cy Young winner has been especially hard-hit in the first inning, but he got out of that having allowed only two hits.

“You got to force him to get the ball up,” Mattingly said. “He gets so many outs down in the strike zone.”

Kemp, who came in batting .500 in his 11 previous home games against the Giants, went 0 for 5.

The Dodgers struck for four runs in the fourth to take a 4-2 lead. Lincecum gave up a leadoff double to Andre Ethier and Bobby Abreu followed with a single. Juan Uribe drove in Ethier with a single to third that Joaquin Arias, who fell down before he could get off the throw to first. A.J. Ellis walked one out later and Gwynn cleared the bases with a drive into deep right field while batting for Chad Billingsley.

“It was nice getting through those first three, but dealing with that fourth wasn’t easy,” Lincecum said. “I didn’t put us in an easy spot. I just tried to pitch a little more aggressively and took my bullpen a little more seriously before the game as if it’s another inning.”

Buster Posey’s RBI single in the third extended the Giants’ lead to 2-0. Brandon Belt reached on a fielder’s choice grounder and Schierholtz singled him to second. Arias had a single to center, and Kemp charged the ball, throwing to second baseman Adam Kennedy for the tag on Schierholtz, who had rounded the bag and was tagged out before Belt could cross the plate.

“I read the ball in the gap and I thought I had a chance possibly to go to third, but I took one step too many and tried to get back, but he made a perfect throw,” Schierholtz said. “I was overaggressive, but that’s how I play the game. We’ve worked on going from first to third. It was just a lack of judgment on my part.”

The Dodgers recalled outfielder-first baseman Scott Van Slyke from Triple-A Albuquerque and he arrived minutes before the game began. The son of former major leaguer Andy Van Slyke got his first major league hit with a pinch-hit RBI single in his first major league at-bat in the sixth.

“My first at-bat I wasn’t as nervous as I thought I’d be,” he said. “As soon as I swung at the pitch, it was just another baseball game.”

Pitcher Aaron Harang walked past Van Slyke after the game and stuffed a towel full of shaving cream in his face.

“That burns,” Van Slyke said as he tried to remove the goop from his eyes.

“Got him!” Kemp shouted as he emerged from the shower. “That burns, huh?”

Lincecum drove in the Giants’ first run with a single to shortstop in the second.

Billingsley lasted only four innings for the Dodgers, allowing two runs and seven hits while striking out five and walking four. He slammed his glove down in the dugout after being yanked.

“I was mad at myself and I wanted to stay in the game,” he said. “I sort of beat myself up. Everything felt good, but my fastball command was kind of off. I fell behind the hitters and I wasn’t being aggressive when I should have been.”

Notes

• The Giants lost their first rubber game of the season, while the Dodgers won their first.
• Dodgers OF Alfredo Silverio, who was seriously hurt in an offseason car accident, had Tommy John surgery on his right throwing elbow and is out for the season.
• Dodgers OF-1B Juan Rivera was placed on the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday with what the team called a significant strained left hamstring. Manager Don Mattingly said Rivera would be out longer than two weeks.
• Dodgers INF Jerry Hairston had a MRI on his strained left hamstring after missing his third consecutive game. He said he would be evaluated either Thursday or Friday.
• Giants OF Angel Pagan was held out of the starting lineup although he felt well enough to play. He had a cramp in his left hamstring while beating out an infield single Tuesday. Gregor Blanco replaced him.

CHICAGO (AP) The Los Angeles Dodgers are off to their best start in years, and manager Don Mattingly thinks Bobby Abreu makes the NL West leaders even better.

Abreu signed with the Dodgers on Friday, insisting he was OK with a reserve role after years as a regular with the Angels, Philadelphia and the New York Yankees. The move gives Los Angeles another seasoned lefty bat on the bench to use late in games.

”I’m just happy to be here,” Abreu said. ”It’s all about the guys we have here. I heard about it, but now that I’m here, you can see all the young guys – we have such a good talent. It’s good to be here and good to be back in the National League.”

The 38-year-old Abreu had been relegated to part-time duty with the Angels and hit .208 in 24 at-bats before he was let go last Friday. He didn’t have to go very far to find another job, joining the surging Dodgers after they won 17 of their first 25 games for their best start since 2009.

”Bobby’s a guy, obviously, who’s been a great hitter his whole career, and kinda makes us, we feel like, incrementally a little bit better,” said Mattingly, who was on the Yankees’ coaching staff for part of Abreu’s stint in New York. ”He gives us a chance to be a little bit better.”

The Dodgers will pay $401,311 of Abreu’s $9 million salary for this year, leaving the Angels with the remaining part of the final season of a $27 million, three-year contract. Infielder Justin Sellers was optioned to the Triple-A Albuquerque to make room on the roster.

Abreu is a career .293 hitter with 284 homers, 1,330 RBIs and 393 stolen bases. He made his major league debut with Houston in 1996 and is returning to the National League for the first time since he was traded by the Phillies to the Yankees in 2006.

Abreu said the transition to the NL should be no problem, and he is fine with his bench role, too.

”You just have to get used to it,” he said. ”The good thing is we talked about it and I know what my role is over here. It’s going to be no problem. I’ll be ready for every opportunity I have to swing the bat or play defense.”

Mattingly was New York’s hitting coach when Abreu joined the Yankees six years ago and served as Joe Torre’s bench coach for the 2007 season. So when Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti asked him about adding Abreu, Mattingly felt he had a good idea of how the veteran would fit in with the team.

”You hear the rumors Bobby’s bad in the clubhouse. I’ve never seen any of that,” Mattingly said. ”To me, he was the opposite. With Melky (Cabrera) and Robby (Cano) over in New York, he’s the guy that helped both of those guys with the strike zone, helped those guys out. I never saw him be a bad teammate, so that was one of the things I wasn’t worried about.”

Abreu was available for Friday’s game against the Chicago Cubs on Wrigley Field, and Mattingly also had another option in his bullpen. Right-hander Ronald Belisario was reinstated from the restricted list on Thursday after he served a 25-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy, and Los Angeles designed reliever Mike MacDougal for assignment to make room on the roster.

”We know who we’re going to late. Beli’s early in the game,” Mattingly said. ”Right now his role would be to get out of an inning. If a guy gets beat up early, we’d go right to Beli.”

Mattingly said the Dodgers would like to keep MacDougal if he isn’t claimed by another team.

—

AP freelance writer Travis Miller contributed to this report.

—

Jay Cohen can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jcohenap

Read More: Jerry Hairston Jr. (SS – LOS), Matt Chico (P – LOS), Matt Guerrier (P – LOS), Ryan Tucker (P – LOS), Jeff Baisley (3B – LOS), Clayton Kershaw (P – LOS), Will Savage (P – LOS), Matt Wallach (C – LOS), Lance Zawadzki (2B – LOS), Gorman Erickson (C – LOS), Los Angeles Dodgers

Minor league games began for the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday, which meant several coaches switched over from the major league side of camp to the minor league side, and with that shift came a flurry of roster cuts on Sunday. Eight players were trimmed from the Dodgers roster on Sunday, leaving the club with 45 players remaining in camp.

“It just got to the point where there weren’t enough at-bats. More and more guys are wanting more innings,” manager Don Mattingly said.

Pitchers Matt Chico, Will Savage, Ryan Tucker, catchers Matt Wallach and Gorman Erickson, and infielders Jeff Baisley and Lance Zawadzki were all reassigned to minor league camp on Sunday, while pitcher Alberto Castillo was given his release.

“We didn’t see [Castillo] as that guy for us and we didn’t see him being that guy in Triple A waiting around either,” Mattingly said. “We felt it was fair to him to get him out on the wire, let people take a look and give him the best chance to be in the big leagues with somebody.”

On the field, the Dodgers tied the Angels 1-1 on Sunday in a rain-shortened game. The game was called after five and a half innings. Clayton Kershaw makes his third Cactus League start on Monday at Goodyear against the Cleveland Indians, and is scheduled to throw roughly 80-85 pitches.

Relief pitcher Matt Guerrier has been held out of workouts for about a week while nursing a back injury, but Mattingly said his right-hander is feeling better and close to a return. Guerrier will participate in dry work on Monday, throw a bullpen session on Tuesday, pitch in a minor league game on Friday, and could pitch in a major league spring game next Sunday if all goes according to plan.

Jerry Hairston Jr. was out Friday with a tight quad, and was sent home early Saturday with the flu. Hairston returned to workouts on Sunday, and is expected to play Monday in Goodyear.

For all news and information regarding the Los Angeles Dodgers, please visit True Blue LA.

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) Brandon Belt lofted a two-run homer and the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers quit after nine innings tied at 3-3 Saturday night.

A brisk win helped Belt’s homer clear the left-field fence.

”I hit it pretty good, but I popped it up a little more than I thought,” Belt said. ”I’d rather get lucky and be 1 for 3 rather than be unlucky and be 0 for 3.”

Belt drove in all three Giants’ runs. He hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game 3-3 in the eighth inning. He drove in Gregor Blanco, who had doubled.

Blanco went 2 for 4 to raise his average to .444 and scored two runs.

Luis Cruz belted a homer to left field that broke a 2-2 tie in the sixth for the Dodgers.

Los Angeles starter Aaron Harang gave up seven hits and two runs, including Belt’s homer, in four innings.

”It’s hard to judge because of the way the wind is blowing,” Harang said. ”You come out of a 2-1 game in those conditions. … I felt good.

”There are a few ballparks in the league where you’ll get these kind of conditions. … Fly balls are carrying or the wind is knocking them down. You get your pitches out of it, try to work on throwing strikes.”

Fielders such as Belt, a first baseman in the past who is learning left field, had the same sort of intrigue.

”I’m just learning how to get my routes down and take good angles. You add the wind factor, and it makes it a lot tougher.”

Starter Brian Burres limited the Dodgers to one run and three hits in three innings.

A sellout crowd of 13,655, a Cactus League record, attended in the breezy conditions. A storm approaching from the west threatens Cactus League games on Sunday, including a sellout at Camelback Ranch in which the Dodgers host the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

”From what we’ve heard we’ll be able to play,” manager Don Mattingly said. ”If we don’t play, we’ll hit in the cages and work out.”

The Dodgers had a chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth.

Josh Fields singled to open the inning, then Cruz sacrificed him to second. The Giants intentionally walked Jeff Baisley, then Matt Angle grounded out, advancing the runners.

Then Matt Yourkin, who pitched three scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 2.25, struck out Justin Sellers to end the game.

Dodgers infielder Ivan DeJesus Jr. injured his side while swinging. He will undergo tests, Mattingly said.

”He’s been looking great,” Mattingly said of DeJesus, who has been stellar in the infield.

NOTES: Don Newcombe, the Dodgers’ special adviser to the chairman, threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Newcombe threw a strike. … Vin Scully, who hadn’t broadcast a game since Sept. 28, worked Saturday night’s game for Dodgers’ TV. Scully, who is entering his 63rd season as a Dodger broadcaster, said he needed some ”batting practice.” Scully, 84, is eliminating games in Colorado from his schedule this season ”just to cut back a little bit more on the traveling.” He will broadcast games in California and Arizona, more than 100 games in all. The first three innings will be simulcast on radio.

GLENDALE, Ariz. (AP) Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly figures his batting order on opening day will look a lot like what he tried Friday. He hopes the result will be familiar, too.

The Dodgers started their expected lineup for the first time in spring training and beat the Texas Rangers 5-2 in a game that included a three-run homer by James Loney and a fielding gem by the first baseman.

”That’s pretty much it,” Mattingly said. ”That’s kind of what I’m looking at right now.”

Most of it had to look good, especially Loney, who had been troubled by tightness in his calf. Any worries about that lingering injury were gone in the first inning when Loney made a diving snag of a hard grounder by Brad Hawpe.

The next inning, batting sixth, hit a 2-0 pitch from Greg Reynolds over the Rangers’ bullpen in right field and on to an elevated walkway at Camelback Ranch. The towering shot, his first homer this spring, scored Andre Ethier, who doubled, and Juan Rivera, who walked.

Loney did not play in games Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

”James knew exactly what he needed,” Mattingly said. ”He needed a couple of days off.”

In the third, Ethier, batting fourth, hit a sacrifice fly to deep center. In the sixth, the Dodgers got an RBI single from Juan Uribe.

Dodgers starter Ted Lilly threw four scoreless innings, allowing one hit without a walk. He retired his last 11 batters.

”Not bad,” said Lilly, who was critical of his performance despite the numbers. ”It was OK. The results probably were a little better than I pitched. But it’s always nice when you get away with mistakes.”

Dodgers reliever Kenley Jansen didn’t get away with anything. He gave up back-to-back home runs in the fifth to Brandon Snyder and Luis Martinez.

”I’ve never given up two home runs in one inning. Never. It was kind of a funny feeling. I’m thinking, ‘What did I do? Hey, they just got me,”’ he said.

NOTES: Dodgers reliever Matt Guerrier is still slowed by a strained muscle in his lower back. He threw Friday, but not off the mound. Mattingly said Guerrier’s work will continue to be limited. ”For a few more days,” Mattingly said. ”We don’t want this to linger.” .The Dodgers play Colorado Saturday in Scottsdale. Right-hander Nathan Eovaldi is scheduled to start for Los Angeles. The Rockies plan to counter with right-hander Jeremy Guthrie. .The Rangers play split-squad games Saturday against the Cubs in Las Vegas and at home in Surprise, Ariz., against the Diamondbacks. Texas LHP Derek Holland is scheduled to start in Las Vegas against the Cubs and Rangers RHP Scott Feldman is the scheduled starter in Surprise against the Diamondbacks.

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Former Great Lakes Loons outfielder Jerry Sands is in the mix for spot on the Los Angeles Dodgers, but Dodgers manager Don Mattingly insists that he will only keep Sands on the Dodgers if he can get consistent at-bats.

If not, Mattingly’s plan is to send Sands back to Triple A.

Much depends on the ability of outfielder Andre Ethier and first baseman James Loney to hit left-handed pitching. Both are left-handed hitters who have struggled against left-handers.

Sands, who played for the Loons for parts of the 2009 and 2010 season, would fit in a right-handed hitting platoon with either Loney or Ethier.

truebluela.com: “We all like Jerry, but he’s at a point where he can still get better. It’s not like he’s a five-year veteran; we don’t know quite what we’re going to get yet from Jerry. We know we get a competitor, we know we get a good athlete who can play first and corner outfield,” said Mattingly. “He has hit lefties pretty well, but struggled on the other side with the righties. I think he can do that, but still remains to be seen.”

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Former Great Lakes Loons players Javy Guerra and Kenley Jansen are expected to form the back end of the Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen this season.

Who will close, however, is open for speculation, despite the announcement from Dodgers manager Don Mattingly that Guerra would remain the closer and Jansen the set-up man.

In Wednesday’s 3-3 exhibition tie against Oakland, Jansen set down the A’s in order, striking out one. Guerra did not allow a run in his inning of work, but walked two.

Jansen played catcher for the Loons in 2007 and 2008, while Guerra spent part of the 2009 season with the Loons.

truebluela.com: “It’s hard not to [think about switching roles] with those two,” Mattingly said. “But Javy took on that role and didn’t drop the ball all year.

“I don’t know what the right decision is, but this is a good problem to have. I like what those two have said, that they are approaching this like if we get to the eighth inning the game is over,” Mattingly said, adding that it will be clear over time which path to take. “Ultimately, the game is going to tell me what to do.”