By Bill Shaikin
The Dodgers hope shortstop Hanley Ramirez can return to their lineup this weekend after an MRI examination showed no damage to his previously injured left hamstring.
The team does not plan to put Ramirez on the disabled list, Manager Don Mattingly said Monday.
"I think it makes everybody feel better that this is not another 15 days," Mattingly said. "It may be four or five."
Ramirez has played in nine of the Dodgers' first 63 games. He made his season debut April 29, after surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb. In his fourth game, he strained his left hamstring.
After another month on the disabled list, he played two games, then reported stiffness in the hamstring. The Dodgers have used him as a pinch-hitter in three of the last four games, meaning they would have delayed his return by four days had they put him on the disabled list.
Ramirez is batting .350 in his nine games, with four extra-base hits. He has hit at least 10 home runs in each of the previous seven seasons; the Dodgers entered play Monday with fewer home runs than any National League team except the Miami Marlins.
Ramirez said he expects to be an impact hitter upon his return.
"You can see how I've been swinging," he said. "I'm feeling good. It's just a problem with my leg."
Ramirez said the Dodgers told him not to run for another two days and said he believed he could play thereafter.
“We’re learning not to listen to Hanley,” Mattingly said.
The Dodgers hope catcher A.J. Ellis can return from the disabled list Friday and center fielder Matt Kemp can follow next week. Ellis said he would start a minor league rehabilitation assignment Tuesday; Mattingly said Kemp could do so as soon as Friday.
By Bill Shaikin
Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig, the newest Hollywood superstar, pulled a familiar move in this town. He told the media to get lost.
For a minute, anyway.
As reporters gathered in the Dodgers clubhouse Monday, Puig got on hands and knees, affixing white tape to the carpet in front of the locker area he shares with infielder Luis Cruz. Puig took a blue marker and, in Spanish, wrote that reporters were forbidden from entering the area.
Puig was smiling the whole time, and he pulled up the tape after a minute. However, according to Cruz, the transition from Chattanooga Lookouts outfielder one week to the hottest thing in baseball has not been easy.
"He likes playing. He doesn't like all the attention," Cruz said. "That's part of his career now. He just wants to go out and play. He's going to have to learn. You guys are going to talk to him even if he goes 0 for 4."
Puig, honored as National League player of the week for his first week in the major leagues, was moved to the cleanup spot Monday. Puig batted leadoff in his first seven games, and Manager Don Mattingly said he probably would move Puig back up in the lineup once Hanley Ramirez and Matt Kemp return from injury.
For now, Mattingly said, "Somebody has got to drive in runs."
Mattingly laughed off any notion that Puig would be overwhelmed by the cleanup spot.
"He is possibly one of the greatest players who ever lived," Mattingly said, jokingly. "I figured he can handle the 4 hole."
By Dylan Hernandez
The Dodgers moved Yasiel Puig to the cleanup spot and recalled utilityman Justin Sellers on Monday to compensate for the absence of power-hitting shortstop Hanley Ramirez.
Ramirez is bothered by tightness in the same left hamstring that forced him to be sidelined for a month earlier this season. He will be out of the lineup for the fifth consecutive day Monday, when the Dodgers open a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Ramirez batted cleanup in three of the four games he started since he returned from the disabled list on May 1.
Puig has led off for the Dodgers in all seven games he has played. Puig is batting .464 and has an on-base percentage of .483, but each of the four runs he has scored came on his home runs.
Manager Don Mattingly said he considered dropping Puig to the cleanup spot on Sunday.
“We’ve got to have somebody back there because somebody has to protect Adrian,” Mattingly said, referring to No. 3 hitter Adrian Gonzalez.
In Sellers, the Dodgers will get additional cover at shortstop. With Ramirez recovering from a broken thumb, Sellers was the Dodgers’ opening-day shortstop. He batted .191 in 26 games and was sent down to triple A early last month.
To clear a spot on the active roster, the Dodgers optioned pitcher Matt Magill to triple-A Albuquerque.
Nick Punto will start at shortstop Monday.
Yasiel Puig could get the Dodgers a trophy -- rookie of the year
By Chris Foster
The Dodgers are on pace to end a significant drought.
A World Series title, their first since 1988? Hardly. That race appears to have been run.
But rookie of the year, once as much a Chavez Ravine tradition as Dodger Dogs, is certainly a possibility.
Yasiel Puig, the 22-year-old eye-opener from Cuba, is an early front-runner in just six games. He is hitting .464 with four home runs and 10 runs batted in, while demonstrating defensive skills to make Willie Mays blush. His only shortcoming is the inability to provide consistent pitching.
Puig could be the first Dodgers rookie of the year since Todd Hollandsworth in 1996. The 16 seasons is the longest the Dodgers have gone without a rookie of the year.
The Dodgers have more rookie of the year winners (16) than any other team. Jackie Robinson won the first award in 1947, and a steady stream of Dodger Blue has followed.
They have come in bunches at times, 1979-80-81-82 (Rick Sutcliffe, Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela, Steve Sax) and 1992-93-94-95-96 (Eric Karros, Mike Piazza, Raul Mondesi, Hideo Nomo, Hollandsworth).
Of course, that begs the question: Five rookie of the year winners in the 1990s and not one World Series championship?
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