Saturday, April 11, 2009

Kruoda lands on the DL with strained oblique

Citing more precautionary purposes, Hiroki Kuroda was placed on the 15-day DL with a strained left oblique muscle, retroactive to Tuesday. He'll be eligible to be activated on April 22.

The Dodgers are saying that this is just to be careful, obviously being really early in the year. Kuroda wanted to start, but wasn't allowed to. After pitching well on Monday in a victory over the Padres, he felt tightness after his bullpen session on Wednesday.

With the Dodgers already facing a lack of depth as far as options in the rotation, this is thankfully not supposed to be a big deal. Still, even missing one start from the Opening Day starter is an issue. If all goes well, he wants to throw in 4-5 days. I hope that's the case.

With Jason Schmidt DL'd and not ready to start even if he wasn't, Eric Stults is on his was back to LA to make today's start. Ok, he's heading to Arizona, but you get the point. He was 2-3 last year, but with a very respectable 3.49 ERA. The Dodgers can really use at least 6 innings from him tonight to give the bullpen a blow.

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