... due to space limitations, I wasn't able to get this into tomorrow's paper, and I wanted to make sure I got it in somewhere ... Andre Ethier had a single, double and home run today for the second time in three games, and he has now homered in three consecutive games. This guy has really been on fire lately. He is 9 for 19 over his past five games, and he has four HRs in his past eight games. Seven of his past 10 hits have gone for extra bases. His HR today came off Giants lefty Jonathan Sanchez, significant because the LH-hitting Ethier came into the day batting .167 (10 for 60) against lefties for the year. He is now hitting .281 overall. ... Also, Jason Schmidt got knocked around in his rehab start at Las Vegas last night, but by all accounts, he pitched well and his velocity was good. He admitted to the Las Vegas Review-Journal that is still a little gun-shy about really letting it go for fear of re-injuring his shoulder. That's something he'll have to get over, but that's what rehab is for. ... Torre also said Andruw Jones and Nomar Garciaparra will sit out Sunday's game. He wants to be cautious with those guys, and that's understandable.

It wasn't pretty -- in fact, it was so no pretty that Joe Torre had a brief team meeting after the game to point out the need to clean up the sloppy play -- but it was effective. Dodgers won their fourth game in a row, their second-longest winning streak of the season. This game was a textbook example of the hitting approach Torre has been trying to instill. The Dodgers couldn't do much against Giants starter Jonathan Sanchez except make him work. They worked him over for 110 pitches over five innings, resulting in Bruce Bochy going to his bullpen in the sixth, and the Dodgers then unloaded on rookie reliever Oriris Matos for five runs in the decisive sixth inning, a rally that began when left fielder Fred Lewis dropped Nomar's fly ball. Dodgers go to 42-44. Snakes play tonight. ... Andruw Jones had the same game Jason Repko had the other night, going 0 for 5 with four strikeouts, suggesting nothing has changed since before he had his surgery -- he is now batting .159 and averaging a strikeout every 3.2 plate appearances. This is what he had to say about it: ``I felt good at the plate. They just made tough pitches on me. Tip your hat to them. There is nothing you can do. I'll just come out tomorrow and go at it again. (Sanchez) pitched really good, and this was the first time ... I have ever faced him.''

So I had the players right in my prediction, but I was wrong about Sweeney being DFA'd. Turns out, he has had a strained right hamstring for the past three or four weeks. Sweeney says it isn't the reason he is hitting .094. Torre says it is. At any rate, the Dodgers were able to activate Nomar and Andruw, both of whom are in the starting lineup, without losing a player from the organizational inventory.

Here's the lineup, but it's subject to change if Kent is scratched with the back thing

RF Kemp
LF Ethier
C Martin
2B Kent
CF Jones
SS Garciaparra
1B Loney
3B LaRoche
RH Lowe

Chad Billingsley was as good as he has ever been, going eight innings and giving up just two unearned runs. Jeff Kent left with a stiff back, but he should be OK for tomorrow, according to both Kent and Joe Torre. Saito got into mild trouble in the ninth, but got out of it. James Loney homered in his hometown. And the Dodgers take three out of four here from the same team that swept them in Los Angeles back in May. Dodgers improve to 41-44. Snakes are trailing the Brewers 5-0 late in the game, this on a day when Brandon Webb was pitching. Looks like the Dodgers might be within a half-game of the division lead by day's end. See my previous post abou the NL West stinkfest. Off to San Francisco.

Both players initiated the change in the wake of the Furcal development. Nomar was going to be activated Monday, anyway, so his return is only being pushed up by three days. But Andruw Jones wasn't supposed to be back until the start of the second half, TWO WEEKS from tomorrow. He was supposed to return to Los Angeles this weekend to rest, then resume his rehab for another eight days starting on Monday. As for whether club officials have any concerns about what this will mean for Nomar's left calf calf and Andruw's surgically repaired right knee, assistant GM Kim Ng said. ``We always have concerns. That is our job, to be concerned.'' ... By the way, Brad Penny will NOT start on Saturday. He had some command issues during his simulated game, so he's going to need another one. The tentative plan now is for him to be activated next week and make only one start before the break, probably start either Wednesday against the Braves or Thursday against the Marlins. Chan Ho Park will pitch Saturday night at San Francisco. Eric Stults, who is away in Indiana for the birth of his second child, will rejoin the club in time to pitch on Sunday against the Giants.

This is one stinkfest of a division, and as we awoke this morning, it was led by a team with a losing record. Yes, the D-backs are now 42-43, and they STILL have a 1 1/2-game lead on the rest of the division. The N.L. West as a whole is 39-46 against the NL East, 45-66 against the NL Central and a ghastly 27-54 (that's a .333 winning percentage) against A.L. teams. NL West teams are 75-75 against each other, but that's only because every game has a winner and a loser. If it wasn't for that basic and unbreakable mathematic principle that doesn't allow for anything other than a .500 record, the NL West would no doubt have as bad a record against itself as it has against the other divisions. ... How about this: in perusing each TEAM's record against the other divisions, the only winning records are the Giants against the East (9-7) and the Dodgers against the Central (16-14). The Pods are 8-8 against the East. Other than that, it's all losers, baby. The Snakes are 20-8 within the division, while no other club is better than 15-13 (Giants), and that is why Arizona continues to cling to a lead.

He will have a disc in his lower back partially removed in a procedure known as a mirco-discectomy (say that three times quickly). As stated earlier, he will miss at least eight more weeks, putting him on track for a possible return in last August. But frankly, at this point, it's tough to imagine him playing again this year -- not because I don't think he will, but just because it's so far down the road that it's hard to even think about right now. What all of this means, of course, is that Ned Colletti basically HAS to find another everyday SS, and don't think the other GMs around the league don't know that. That means they will have ALL the leverage in any trade talks with the Dodgers, which probably means the club has to give up at least one of its valued prospects -- unless, of course, Ned ultimately decides there isn't another SS out there worth doing that for, and the Dodgers go with a Nomar/Maza/Berroa combo for the rest of the year. Hey, it's working so far. They might be 40-44, but they also appeared on the verge of moving within 1 1/2 of the Snakes after the Brewers took a 4-3 lead in the top of the ninth.

Gotta bang out my game story, but I'll come back here when I'm done and fill you in on the rest.

I was as surprised as you undoubtedly are, but no one was more surprised that Kershaw himself. Joe Torre stressed, both to Clayton and to the media, that the move was more about needing a roster spot for Hiroki Kuroda, who is coming off the DL and starting tonight, than it was about the way Clayton has pitched. But as Clayton himself said, ``Any way you spin it, I'm getting sent down. They can say they didn't have enough room, but they (brought) me up when they didn't have enough room, because all those (pitchers) were healthy then.'' Haven't gotten a definitive explanation yet of why it's Jacksonville and not Las Vegas, but I'm sure it's because they don't want to subject the kid to the psychological perils of pitching in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League. ... Still nothing on Furcal, but Torre admitted he now has to take on the mindset that Furcal isn't coming back until he does. At this point, I'm not convinced he is coming back at all, but Torre was a bit more cautious. ``We have half a season (left),'' he said. ``I would like to think that is going to happen.''

And nothing for me to post on this blog. But I do hope to have something on the roster move within the hour and something on Furcal within the next couple of hours. So stay tuned.