A change-up from my usual Disabled List rant

One player the Dodgers won’t bring up to fill gaps is Yasiel Puig. It’s nice to dream of the day they do though… By Owen Main

When it came to the Dodgers of the past few years and even this year’s Lakers teams, my rants about injuries of players on my favorite teams have been pretty steadfast. In a nutshell, here’s my prevailing thought:

If you sign players who have a history of injury and pencil them in to play 90 percent of the games in a season, PLEASE don’t insult my intelligence and act completely surprised and taken off-guard when said players are injured and the season doesn’t go like you would have liked it to. (see Dwight Howard, Steve Nash, and a less recent baseball example: Rafael Furcal).

My point is always that if you have players like this on your roster, have a backup plan.

The Lakers of this past season had a hard time with a back-up plan for Steve Nash and Dwight Howard’s injuries. When Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol also went down, their chances went (in the words of the great Chick Hearn) “from slim to none. And Slim just left the building.”

Which brings me to this year’s Dodgers roster. One of the reasons why I bought into the “Whole New Blue” mantra was because these guys seemed to have a plan. Players were treated conservatively in the preseason and there seemed to be a solid, quality backup everywhere you turned.

Matt Kemp seemed to be getting healthier by the day. Carl Crawford was developing back into the Carl Crawford fans in Tampa Bay knew so well. Hanley Ramirez was on-track to get back from a World Baseball Classic injury that forced him to be out until April 29. The team had EIGHT starting pitchers to help account for any potential injuries. Yasiel Puig, Dee Gordon, Tony Gwynn Jr., Scott Van Slyke, Elian Herrera, and Justin Sellars are all players who have spent time in the minor leagues this season and, with the exception of Puig and Van Slyke, have significant major league experience.

The team had insurance policies on insurance policies, or so it seemed.

It started with the rotation.

First, Aaron Harang was traded. Who needs eight starting pitchers? Seven is more than enough. Then Zach Grienke went down (Carlos Quentin has been playing for weeks…). Then Chad Billingsley needed Tommy John surgery. And then there were five.

Chris Capuano was rushed into duty and looked all right, but then he got hurt, too. Ted Lilly came off the Disabled List and quickly returned to the trainer’s office after only a few starts. The mantra that you can never have enough pitching has proven true for the boys in blue, but that’s only been half the battle when it comes to injuries.

After only 12 plate appearances, Hanley Ramirez went back on the disabled list. Luis Cruz may as well have been injured for as much production as he’s given the Dodgers. Adrian Gonzalez injured his neck and Mark Ellis is now on the disabled list too.

Yes, the Dodgers still have Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Carl Crawford, sometimes Gonzalez, and Clayton Kershaw healthy and they don’t really have an excuse to be as bad as they’ve been.

At this point, when the team is forced to start a number of reliable utility players throughout the infield, this fan is willing to give them something of a pass.

They had quality back-ups, but having to play them all at once wasn’t in the plan. In the midst of getting swept by the Giants, the Dodgers started Juan Uribe, Nick Punto, Gordon, and Cruz in the infield. Cruz was probably the weakest option of the bunch and he’s the only one who was penciled in as a starter at the beginning of the year.

With a lineup like that, all Dodgers fans can do is wait and hope that time doesn’t run out on guys getting healthy. In this case, the injury bug really has been more like a plague.