Read More: Aaron Harang (P – LOS), Dana Eveland (P – BAL), Chris Capuano (P – LOS), Baltimore Orioles, Los Angeles Dodgers

The Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday traded left-handed starting pitcher Dana Eveland to the Baltimore Orioles for a pair of minor leaguers, lefty pitcher Jarret Martin and outfielder Tyler Henson. Moving Eveland freed up a spot on the 40-man roster for Aaron Harang, whom the Dodgers signed to a two-year contract on Thursday morning.

Harang, 28, was a likely candidate to be non-tendered next week anyway, and that was before the Dodgers signed Harang and Chris Capuano, giving them five starting pitchers signed through 2013. Harang was 3-2 with a 3.03 in five starts in September for the Dodgers after making the Triple A All-Star team with the Albuquerque Isotopes.

Martin, 22, was 5-12 with a 4.96 ERA in 31 games, including 18 starts for Class A Delmarva in the South Atlantic League in 2011. He was an 18th round selection in the 2009 draft by Baltimore. Henson, who turns 24 on December 15, hit .247/.313/.321 in Triple A in 2011.

For more Dodgers offseason news and analysis, be sure to read True Blue LA.

The Washington Nationals’ two recent losing battles — against the National League and the weather — continued in vain Thursday at soggy Nationals Park, where the Nationals lost Game 1 of a doubleheader, 7-4, to the Los Angeles Dodgers before they watched rain wash out the second game, almost certainly for good.

The Nationals canceled Thursday’s second game, originally scheduled for Wednesday, and it will be made up only if the Dodgers remain in playoff contention at the end of the season. Barring that unlikely development — the Dodgers were 11¹/
₂ games out in the NL West entering Thursday night — the Nationals will play only 161 games this season.

The Nationals will skip Thursday’s scheduled starter, left-hander Ross Detwiler, in order to keep their rotation intact for the weekend intact. Stephen Strasburg will make his start Sunday at Nationals Park against the Astros as originally planned, with Tom Milone pitching Friday and John Lannan starting Saturday.

Strasburg pitching Sunday keeps him on schedule to start Sept. 16 at Nationals Park, too, allowing his first three starts back from Tommy John surgery to come at home.

The Dodgers do not come back to the East Coast all season, which is why the teams will not attempt to reschedule the game unless it is necessary. The Nationals have dealt with rainouts constantly this season.

“The weather has been tricky,” General Manager Mike Rizzo said. ”There’s a lot of decisions that go into cancelling a game. There are personnel decision. There are team decisions. There’s MLB decisions. I felt we did a good job of getting in as many games as we could.”

The Nationals lost Thursday afternoon’s game, in part, because their two-week backslide had turned Drew Storen from pitcher to observer. As they lost 11 times in the 14 games before Thursday, and Storen pitched only twice. The closer is marginalized – and made rusty – when there aren’t any wins to save.

Storen changed a tie game in the ninth inning into a 7-4 loss to the Dodgers. The Nationals dropped to 65-76, a season-worst 11 games under .500. They are now closer to the last-place Florida Marlins (2¹/
₂ games) than the third-place New York Mets (4¹/
₂ games before Thursday night) in the NL East. Their 12th loss in 15 games arrived when Dodgers outfielder Tony Gwynn Jr. roped a two-out, two-run double over Jayson Werth’s head in center field. Storen did not use his layoff as an alibi — “I’m not going to sit here and make excuses,” he said — but it probably contributed.

“It’s just one of those outings,” Manager Davey Johnson said. “He hadn’t had a whole lot of regular work here the last part of the year.”

Werth hit his 19th home run this season, a two-run blast to left in the third inning that tied the game at 4. The Nationals scored four runs on five hits and knocked out Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley in the third. But their offense did not a produce a hit either before or after that inning.

The Dodgers took a 4-0 lead by scoring two runs off Chien-Ming Wang in the first and third innings. But Wang followed his recent pattern and settled down, retiring 10 of the last 11 batters he faced.

DENVER — Los Angeles Dodgers center fielder Matt Kemp was scratched from Friday night’s starting lineup just before game time with a left hamstring injury, the severity of which wasn’t immediately known, but trainer Stan Conte said through a team spokesman that the decision to remove Kemp was “precautionary.”

Kemp felt mild tightness while running out a seventh-inning double on Thursday night. After participating in pregame workouts on Friday, he felt it again, at which point the decision was made to sit him to avoid risk of making the injury worse.

In a season in which the Dodgers have been decimated by injuries, losing Kemp for any length of time would be their most devastating blow yet. He entered play on Thursday leading the National League with 18 home runs and sitting in second with 53 RBIs, and he has been by far the Dodgers’ most productive offensive player this season.

Kemp was replaced in the lineup by Trent Oeltjen, who was called up from Triple-A Albuquerque on Thursday. Oeltjen was inserted in left field, with Tony Gwynn Jr. moving over from left field to center.

Tony Jackson covers the Dodgers for ESPNLosAngeles.com.

Follow Tony Jackson on Twitter: @dodgerscribe

A savage beating by two men outside Dodgers Stadium has left a San Francisco Giants fan hospitalized and police urging any witnesses to step forward to help identify the attackers.

The beating after Thursday’s season opener between the Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers left the victim in critical but stable condition.

Police late Friday released composite sketches of the two suspects, who were wearing Dodgers clothing. Investigators were also checking to see if any security camera captured the attack, but Detective Larry Burcher said so far they’d found “nothing of great value.”

“We’re very confident there were witnesses, it happened immediately following the game when everybody was coming out,” Burcher said.

Police said the two men began taunting three men in Giants gear with expletives as thousands of baseball fans left the stadium after Thursday night’s 2-1 Dodger victory, Detective T.J. Moore said.

The Giants fans tried to distance themselves from their assailants, and two made it away from them, but one was struck with fists on the back of the head and as he fell, his head hit the ground in Parking Lot 2 on the third base side of the ballpark, Moore said.

Both attackers then kicked the victim, who suffered a head injury, and ran, Moore said. The suspects fled in a four-door sedan driven by a woman with a male child passenger in the vehicle, Moore said.

When the victim’s friends turned around to look for him, they saw him on the ground and made their way back to him.

Police paramedics on bicycles were the first to arrive to help the victim. An ambulance was called and the victim was taken to a nearby hospital, Moore said.

The victim’s name wasn’t released, but KGO radio in San Francisco and the Santa Cruz Sentinel identified him as Bryan Stow, a 42-year-old paramedic from Santa Cruz. His brother-in-law, David Collins, told KGO that Stow, a father of two, has severe head injuries.

“It’s sad,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said before Friday’s game against the Dodgers. “It’s a shame somebody’s in critical condition because of a ball game. When they’re out fighting in the parking lot, we’ve lost sight of what this is all about. Sounds like the guy got blindsided, too.”

The Dodgers said they were co-operating with investigators and wished the victim a speedy recovery.

“It is extremely unfortunate that this incident took place on what was otherwise a great day at DodgerStadium for tens of thousands of fans,” the team said in a statement. “We’re committed to having the most fan and family friendly environment in baseball and will continue to make that a top priority.”

The stadium has been plagued by opening day violence in the past.

In April 2009, a man stabbed his friend in the stadium parking lot after the home opener, in which theDodgers. Arthur Alvarez said he acted in self-defense and was acquitted by a jury.

The West Coast rivalry began on April 18, 1958, the first game played in California after both teams had moved from New York. The Dodgers beat the Giants 6-5 in a game played before nearly 79,000 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

“I was disappointed,” new Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said about the Thursday attack. “You don’t want to see that. Everyone likes rivalries, but to me that’s crossing the line.”

LOS ANGELES – Opening day at Dodger Stadium turned violent when authorities say two men in Dodgers clothing severely beat a San Francisco Giants fan after the longtime rival teams’ first game.

The attack left the victim in critical but stable condition as authorities asked any possible witnesses Friday for help in identifying the assailants. Police released composite sketches of the two suspects late Friday. Investigators also reviewed footage of the Thursday incident to see if any security camera captured it, but Detective Larry Burcher said so far they’d found “nothing of great value.”

“We’re very confident there were witnesses, it happened immediately following the game when everybody was coming out,” Burcher said.

Police said the two men began taunting three men in Giants gear with expletives as thousands of baseball fans left the stadium after Thursday night’s 2-1 Dodger victory, Detective T.J. Moore said.

The Giants fans tried to distance themselves from their assailants, and two made it away from them, but one was struck with fists on the back of the head and as he fell, his head hit the ground in Parking Lot 2 on the third base side of the ballpark, Moore said.

Both attackers then kicked the victim, who suffered a head injury, and ran, Moore said. The suspects fled in a four-door sedan driven by a woman with a male child passenger in the vehicle, Moore said.

When the victim’s friends turned around to look for him, they saw him on the ground and made their way back to him.

Police paramedics on bicycles were the first to arrive to help the victim. An ambulance was called and the victim was taken to a nearby hospital, Moore said.

He remained in critical but stable condition Friday, the detective said. The victim has been identified, but his name was being withheld until police can talk to relatives, Moore said. Because his injuries were so severe, detectives had not yet talked to him, he said.

The victim was identified by KGO radio in San Francisco and the Santa Cruz Sentinel as Bryan Stow of Santa Cruz.

His brother-in-law, David Collins, told KGO that Stow has “swelling of the brain, a fractured skull, and … a frontal lobe that’s bruised pretty badly.”

“It’s sad,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said before Friday’s game against the Dodgers. “It’s a shame somebody’s in critical condition because of a ball game. When they’re out fighting in the parking lot, we’ve lost sight of what this is all about. Sounds like the guy got blindsided, too.”

Stow, a Giants fan, is a father of two who works as a paramedic for American Medical Response in San Mateo, Collins told the Sentinel.

“He’s not doing too well,” he told the Sentinel. “He’s still unconscious and they just decided to put him in a medically induced coma. They are hoping the brain swelling will go down, but it hasn’t and they are talking about removing one of his frontal lobes, Collins said.

Moore said no one in the crowd had come forward with any cellphone or video camera footage, but also noted that there were so many people in the area that 90 per cent of the crowd may not have even known what was going on.

The Dodgers said they were co-operating with investigators and wished the victim a speedy recovery.

“It is extremely unfortunate that this incident took place on what was otherwise a great day at Dodger Stadium for tens of thousands of fans,” the team said in a statement. “We’re committed to having the most fan and family friendly environment in baseball and will continue to make that a top priority.”

The stadium has been plagued by opening day violence in the past.

In April 2009, a man stabbed his friend in the stadium parking lot after the home opener, in which the Dodgers beat the Giants 11-1. Arthur Alvarez was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon. Alvarez, who contended that he was knocked to the ground and acted in self-defense, was later acquitted by a jury.

The West Coast rivalry began on April 18, 1958, the first game played in California after both teams had moved from New York. The Dodgers beat the Giants 6-5 in a game played before nearly 79,000 fans at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

“I was disappointed,” new Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said about the Thursday attack. “You don’t want to see that. Everyone likes rivalries, but to me that’s crossing the line.”

Published: Thursday, March 17, 2011, 9:46 AM

LOS ANGELES – Former Great Lakes Loons star Dee Gordon was one of the players reassigned and set down from the Los Angeles Dodgers major league training camp.

Other former Loons optioned out included pitcher Javy Guerra and outfielder Trayvon Robinson. Also sent down were Jamie Hoffmann and John Lindsey.