I Don't Know if You Noticed This, But. . .

(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)

Stults, a 29-year old lefty from Plymouth, IN, is reporting no discomfort in his rehabilitation starts. As PJ reports in this article, the hurler is up to a pitch count of 60, and is quickly regaining command of his pitch locations.

Stults is a bright young talent, who hurled a shutout in just his ninth major league start in 2008, and tossed another one on Mother’s Day of this year. Having him at the back end of the rotation could leave the Bums’ rotation looking something like this:

1) Righty Chad Billingsley; 2) Righty Hiroki Kuroda; 3) Lefty Randy Wolf (unless/until he breaks down); 4) Lefty Eric Stults; and 5) Lefty Clayton Kershaw.

The days of an all-right-handed Dodgers’ rotation are long gone. Stults, in particular, pitches well to righty batters. If he improves his control, the sky seems to be the limit. He could progress to the front of the rotation as a No. 2 type; f he pitches well enough, I wouldn’t mind having him break up Bills and Roki, though Torre might want Wolf there.

And I don’t know if you noticed it yet, but Rafael Furcal seems to be getting his game together right on time.

With Ramirez back, Juan Pierre (by default) heads back to the bench, as he doesn’t have the arm to displace Andre Ethier in rightfield (not to mention power, youth, etc.), nor the overall skill set to bump Matt Kemp out at center.

He will be eased into the line-up a few times a week, though, as he has been a most pleasant surprise for this edition of the Dodgers.

The problem with that is: the club loses its lead-off hitter when that happens.

Furcal, though, has long preferred the lead-off spot in the line-up. It’s just that he wasn’t hitting well enough to set the table for the team, and with Pierre playing so well (.321 BA, .381 OBP, 22 steals), Torre left him in the one hole.

Rafael came off the bench to single home the only run in a 1-0 triumph over the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday, and collected four hits to spur the Dodgers to a 6-3 victory over San Diego on Friday night—Manny’s first night back, as the team moved to 51-29.

Combine that with Russell Martin’s two RBI night on Friday, and the Dodgers are finally very close to hitting on all cylinders.

Torre has been dogged by questions about Martin’s mystifying lack of production this season. Nothing I have read indicates that the catcher is dinged up; he’s just going through the worst dry spell of his major league career.

With Manny back, the entire line-up should prosper, as PJ ably demonstrated here, so I feel no need to have the same discussion again.

I will comment that anytime you can move Casey Blake back down out of the top five in your order; anytime Andre Ethier and Matt Kemp are allowed to relax and just play ball without the pressure of having to jack dingers; and any time you have Juan Pierre as your fourth outfielder; your team is in marvelous shape.

But whether you noticed it or not, the best team in baseball, without having to make a trade or even so much as a waiver acquisition, has just gotten substantially better. It’s up to Joe Torre to squeeze production out of this team; I have no doubts that he will.

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