Ronald Belisario Activated, Mike MacDougal Designated For Assignment

Ronald Belisario Activated, Mike MacDougal Designated For Assignment

The Dodgers on Thursday activated Ronald Belisario from the restricted list now that his 25-game suspension has been served. Belisario, who missed all of last season after failing to get a work visa, last pitched in the major leagues on October 1, 2010.

Belisario is out of options and has already been outrighted once in his career, meaning he would have to approve any assignment to the minor leagues.

To make room for Belisario on the active roster, the Dodgers designated Mike MacDougal for assignment. MacDougal, who won a roster spot on a minor league deal last season, signed a major league deal worth a guaranteed $1 million this season but has struggled to throw strikes pretty much since the beginning of spring training, even more so than his career mark of 4.8 walks per nine innings would imply.

MacDougal had a 7.94 ERA in 7 games this season, with six walks and four strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.

Belisario pitched in four games during his rehab assignment, allowing four runs in two games April 25 and April 28 with Class A Rancho Cucamonga, then he pitched on back-to-back nights with Triple A Albuquerque on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday night, Belisario allowed a pair of unearned runs and last night Belisario allowed a leadoff single but finished with three groundouts for his first scoreless outing during the rehab assignment.

That Belisario gave up runs during his rehab assignment (six runs in 4 2/3 innings, with two walks and a strikeout) isn't a huge concern. Those games were literally just to get Belisario some game reps before rejoining the Dodgers.

Whatever evaluation was made of Belisario was made both during spring training and in the ensuing time in extended spring training in Glendale, Arizona during his suspension, not just during a week's worth of minor league games designed to get Belisario ready for big league action.

"His velocity was up, and like before you saw sink," manager Don Mattingly said of Belisario's spring training work last week. "We didn't see consistency. His stuff was still good, but he just wasn't getting the ball where he needed to get it."

Obviously the Dodgers felt confident enough in Belisario's stuff that they were willing to give him another chance. "Beli's stuff never really been in question. It's always been good," Mattingly said.

With Belisario, it is the other stuff that seems to get in the way. From his DUI arrest in 2009, to showing up five weeks late to spring training in 2010, to being placed on the restricted list for a month during the 2010 season while reportedly undergoing substance abuse treatment, to missing an entire season in 2011 because he was unable to secure a work visa, to getting suspended for 25 games for cocaine use, a drug Belisario says he tried just once, Belisario has never been someone to be counted on.

But the fact that Belisario showed up very early this year - he showed up in Arizona on January 23, nearly a month before his reporting date - went a long way in proving his commitment. Now he just has to prove he can get major league hitters out. The Dodgers are betting he can.

Now that the Dodgers have added one Venezuelan to their roster in Belisario, will they add another in Bobby Abreu? The 40-man roster has 39 players, so there is room for Abreu.

Aprils To Remember: Matt Kemp & Ron Cey

Matt Kemp had himself an April to remember, quite possibly the greatest single month in Dodgers history. Kemp hit .417/.490/.893 with 12 home runs, 25 RBI, and 24 runs scored. Kemp led MLB in just about everything and was unanimously voted the National League Player of the Month.

Kemp set a new Dodgers April record with those 12 home runs, but he couldn't quite surpass the franchise April records for batting average and RBI.

Those belong to the mustachioed Ron Cey, who began the 1977 season on fire. Thanks to the season starting on April 7, Cey played just 20 games in April 1977, three fewer than Kemp 35 years later, but set then-MLB records with nine home runs and 29 RBI.

Cey did most of his April damage on a 12-game road trip that saw him hit .452 with seven home runs and 19 RBI, with a whopping .571 on-base percentage. The Dodgers went 11-1 on that road trip through San Francisco, Cincinnati, Atlanta, and San Diego.

Cey hit .425/.543/.890 in April and like Kemp won the National League Player of the Month Award. Cey helped the Dodgers to a 17-3 start and an early 7½-game lead over the two-time defending World Series champion Big Red Machine.

Cey had at least one hit in 18 of 20 games in April, and in the other two games he walked once. He drove in at least one run in each of the first seven games of the year, and had an RBI in 16 of 20 April games. It was quite a month.

It was a lead the Dodgers never would relinquish, as they won 98 games in Tommy Lasorda's first year as manager and advanced to the World Series. Cey would hit just .214/.315/.385 the rest of the season, but fueled by his hot start would finish with 30 home runs and 110 RBI, making Cey one of the first quartet of teammates to hit 30 home runs in a season.

By Tim Brown | Yahoo! Sports – Wed, May 2, 2012 9:03 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES – Mark Walter is just some guy who walked in.

Nice job. Nice suit. Nice family. Nice smile.

It's Wednesday at Dodger Stadium. He's introduced as the new owner.

A television guy, right in the middle of an interview, brushed a stray bug out of Walter's hair. Just reached out and touched the man, like they'd been pals forever, and Walter didn't recoil or alert security or, for that matter, summon his on-call hairdresser.

He just kept talking, presumably thankful there was no longer a bug in his hair.

An hour earlier, during the formal presentation of the new owner and his partners, the contentious subject of former owner Frank McCourt and his vague affiliation with the current administration arose. After Magic Johnson addressed the topic, and Stan Kasten addressed it, and Magic addressed it again, the questions kept coming. Magic then ordered Walter to the big microphone at the front of the stage.

"Be direct with these people, please," Magic told him.

And Walter sprung from his chair to go be direct with these people.

He got close to a full explanation, but not close enough for Magic, who concluded, "Frank's not here. He's not a part of the Dodgers anymore. We should be clapping just for that."

From his seat beside Magic, Walter nodded.

Look, there's no way of knowing what kind of franchise owner Mark Walter will be. That he's not Frank McCourt will mollify most people for long enough. That he discounted the cost of a parking spot at Dodger Stadium – from $15 to $10 – will placate plenty. That his team is in first place, something he inherited from the guy whose absence we were supposed to applaud, will buy some time, too.

That's all fine.

But when it comes to its baseball owner, Los Angeles has had it with nice suits. The place has been lousy with empty ones for too long.

L.A. wants someone it can trust. After Fox, after McCourt, L.A. wants some dignity. Someone it can talk to. A man it can relate to. Someone whose true bottom line might be found in a box score.

Dodgers fans can love Magic Johnson all they want, but it's the guy next to him, the other guy in the suit, who really matters.

Mark Walter grew up outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, playing catch in the front yard with his dad, Ed, a laborer for the town's concrete block manufacturer. Not having a big-league team nearby to call his own, Walter was dragged along in fandom by whoever was on the radio. Some nights that was the Minnesota Twins, others the Chicago Cubs, maybe the St. Louis Cardinals. The Baltimore Orioles were good, so he pulled for Frank Robinson, Brooks Robinson, Paul Blair and all the pitching Earl Weaver had. He settled finally on the Cubs when he was working for a law firm in Chicago, and routinely takes his only child – a daughter – to Wrigley Field.

That's all quite romantic. Still doesn't make Walter, now chief executive of investment firm Guggenheim Partners, a good owner. L.A. has had enough of the stories, enough of the promises.

On a riser in center field, under a gray sky, Johnson spoke with great fervor and smiled humbly. His laughter carried to the canyons. He choked with emotion when reminded he was following Jackie Robinson into the organization. He lauded Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp, and shouted, "Let's give it up for that!"

At the same podium, Walter spoke softly. He thanked his mother and father, his wife and daughter. He mentioned his roots. "Not far from the Field of Dreams," he said.

His voice trembled in spots.

"I was nervous," he admitted.

He said he hadn't done many interviews with the press, ever.

"This is the second," he said.

He wore his new Dodger cap pushed back on his head. It was a little crooked. (The cap, not the head.) He held his hands behind his back when he spoke, unclasping them to turn the page on his notes, then re-clasping them.

"This is really not about us," he said. "This is about the Dodgers."

And that's a start.

They threw more than $2 billion at this thing, at a roster and a stadium and some land, at a brand and the people who love it. Now I can't go anywhere without someone telling me the Guggenheim gang overpaid, and won't have anything left for operating capital, these being the same someones who gladly go to the ballpark and overpay for parking, hot dogs and Coors Lights.

All they have left to trust is Magic's promises, and Kasten's baseball background, and this stranger named Mark Walter who says he has plenty of money. Pardon Dodgers fans for feeling a bit squishy about things. The last guy made a lot of promises, too.

"There's part of him that's a mystery," said Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, a partner of Guggenheim Baseball Management and an investor in the team, "because he does things with elegance. He uses the least amount of force to get the maximum result.

"He's tough, but he's not mean. He's generous, empathetic and very genial. If you're going to be killed by him, you'd drop dead three weeks later from unknown causes."

Good to know. And what does Mark Walter hate?

"People that are disingenuous," Guber said. "He doesn't like people who are inauthentic. He looks at their feet, their heart, their head and their wallet and sees if they're all going in the same direction. That's why I like him. More, why I trust him."

After Magic met once or twice with Walter, he knew Walter reminded him of someone, but couldn't place the name or face. There was a way about him, an avoidance of attention, a gentleness that hid ferocity, and a brilliance in business matters that ran common sense with fresh ideas.

The name and face came to him weeks later.

"I'd met a guy just like Jerry Buss," Magic said. "He is so into his family. He didn't want to be out front. He has a great passion for winning. He doesn't care if people know who he is. This is Dr. Buss all over again."

The Dodgers, of course, haven't won a championship in a generation. So that's what they'll all go to work on come Monday. Walter had a flight to catch Wednesday afternoon, and he'll be in Chicago this weekend when the Dodgers play what formerly was his favorite team. Then he'll return to L.A., where he's often spent a week of every month on Guggenheim business.

Soon, Walter said, he'd buy a home in L.A., so he can be nearer the Dodgers.

One?

Tracy Ringolsby

May 3, 2012

Matt Kemp's April explosion sparked Triple Crown conversations, he and the rest of the Los Angeles Dodgers are dealing more in reality than dreams. They have enjoyed a best-in-the-National League beginning to 2012, but have not lost sight of the six-month challenge of a baseball season.

Reality check:  With a 17-7 start, the Dodgers' magic number to clinch the NL West remained 135 games.

And, oh by the way, the Colorado Rockies rocked baseball in April a year ago, opening the season by winning 17 of their first 25 games. They went 56-83 the rest of the way, and by the All-Star break were fading into oblivion.

"It is too early to think anything other than we got off to a good start," said manager Don Mattingly.

Nobody is more aware of that than Rockies manager Jim Tracy. Colorado's skipper rallied the Rockies to the NL wild-card back in a 2009 season that began so poorly he was promoted from bench coach to manager in late May after manager Clint Hurdle was fired.

He also can remember a 2010 season in which the Rockies were one game out of first place in the NL West with 14 games to play, and lost 13 of the remaining 14 games, finishing nine games out.

And then there was that false start of a year ago.

"Over the course of 162 games, all 30 teams will step into a pothole," Tracy said. "Every single one of them at some point in time will go through something like that. The teams that figure out quicker than others how to get the hell out of the pothole that they stepped in, that will go a long way in determining what your season will look like."

The Dodgers have built their early success off a strong-armed rotation -- 11-3 with a 2.86 earned-run average in the first 24 games -- and the explosive starts of Kemp and Andre Ethier, their 3-4 hitters. While Kemp has been the focus of what's gone right -- he joined Tony Perez and Larry Walker as the only players in history to hit .400 with 10 home runs and 25 RBI in April -- Ethier has been every bit as significant.

With three RBI in the Dodgers' 7-6 victory at Colorado on Tuesday night, Ethier took the major league lead in RBI with 27, two more than Kemp.

The combined 18 home runs of Kemp (12 HR, 25 RBI to go with a .409 average) and Ethier in the first 24 games of the season are more than eight major-league teams. And that's an uncomfortable overload on a single team.

The rest of the Dodgers have combined for only five home runs and 47 RBI, five fewer than Kemp and Ethier combined.

"History says it isn't likely they will continue at that pace," said Dodgers coach Davey Lopes. "When you look, it takes four or five guys having big years for a team to have success. Rarely do you see a team depend on two guys. It's happened a time or two, but the history of the game says the odds are against you having success without balance."

That 2010 Rockies teams is a great piece of evidence for what Lopes says. The Rockies hung on for an 82-80 finish despite seasons that made MVP candidates out of shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who won a Gold Glove while hitting .315 with 27 home runs and 95 RBI, and outfielder Carlos Gonzalez, who hit .336 with 34 home runs, 117 RBI and 26 stolen bases.

Nobody else on the team hit .270 or drove in 65 runs.

"We are fortunate right now that (Kemp) and Ethier have carried us so far," said third base coach Tim Wallach. "You expect at some point they are not going to continue the pace they have set, but at the same time history says we have other guys who are capable, and during the long grind of the season you look for them to pick the team up at some point.

"We have some professional hitters who have a track record and I think that bodes well for us."

Nobody has stumbled more than James Loney, who went into Wednesday hitting .230 with one home run and six RBI. He has a career .286 average, and in his five full big-league seasons has averaged 12 home runs and 80 RBI per season. And he had what observers felt could be a breakthrough moment in the final two months last season, hitting .357 with eight home runs and 32 RBI.

"When we went to spring training we had reason to feel James could do what he did at the end of last year, but we have a lot of guys not doing what they are capable of, not just James," said Lopes.

Dee Gordon, the base-stealing phenom, has 10 stolen bases, but it has been hard for him to add to his total. He hit the first home run of his career Tuesday, a blast off the right field façade at Coors Field to open the 7-6 victory against Jhoulys Chacin. But it was just his third hit in his last 29 at-bats as his average has fallen to .209.

Left fielder Juan Rivera, slowed by a sore hamstring lately, is hitting .250 with one home run and nine RBI. Juan Uribe is hitting .267, driving in just seven runs and yet to hit his first home run.

"We are not clicking on all cylinders, but we are in a good position," said Lopes. "We feel the other guys are fully capable of (rebounding)."

And the Dodgers, their fast start notwithstanding, know they will need those "other guys" to rebound if the Dodgers are to maintain.