Clayton Kershaw to start for Dodgers on Friday

By Jon Weisman

The Dodgers’ official roster move today was to make Jose De Leon their 31st player on the active roster and their first to take the mound today against San Diego.

But they also signaled a bigger roster move to come later this week. According to Dave Roberts, Los Angeles plan to send National League Cy Young Award candidate Clayton Kershaw to the mound Friday at Miami for the start of the Dodgers’ 10-game road trip.

If he resumes his big-league campaign Friday and works regularly on four days’ rest, Kershaw would theoretically have five regular-season starts remaining: September 9 (at Marlins), September 14 (at New York Yankees), September 19 (vs. Giants), September 24 (vs. Rockies) and either September 29 (at Padres) or September 30 (on five days’ rest at Giants).

Obviously, that’s just on paper — there’s a lot of road between now and the end of the month.

Roberts told reporters today that there was no hard pitch count for Kershaw’s expected return Friday, but the Dodgers will monitor his pitches.

In other news on the starting rotation, Roberts said Rich Hill was fine physically today after his outstanding six innings Saturday. Brandon McCarthy will have a rehab assignment Monday with Rancho Cucamonga, and Scott Kazmir is scheduled for a 90-pitch rehab outing for Oklahoma City on Wednesday — which will be Game 1 of its first-round Pacific Coast League playoff series against Nashville.

The news was less bright for Brett Anderson, whom Roberts said had a recurrence of his blister issues Saturday with Rancho Cucamonga in an outing in which he allowed 10 baserunners in two innings.

In the meantime, Kenta Maeda, Ross Stripling and Brock Stewart are set to take the mound for the Dodgers in their upcoming series against Arizona from Monday-Wednesday. With Stewart pitching Wednesday, an off day Thursday and Kershaw on Friday, that means Julio Urías is not taking a turn in the starting rotation for the time being.