Dodger Thoughts

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By Jon Weisman

Rain kept the Dodgers from spreading their wings across the great grounds of Camelback Ranch this morning, but as the Dodgers’ public relations department notes, it wasn’t a lost day:

With spring showers pouring down in Camelback Ranch – Glendale, the Dodgers held their fifth full-squad workout of 2015, working in the batting cages while the coaching staff held a baserunning meeting and also talked about the new pace of game rules with position players. Clayton Kershaw, Brandon League, Chris Hatcher, Hyun-Jin Ryu, Joel Peralta, Joe Wieland, Ben Rowen, Ryan Buchter and Daniel Coulombe tossed regular bullpens.

For Ryu and Peralta, this was another step forward after being a step behind last week, as Ken Gurnick of MLB.com notes.

Kershaw was also christened as the Dodgers’ Opening Day starter for the 2015 regular season, putting him on track to become the second pitcher since the team moved to Los Angeles to start five consecutive Opening Days for the Dodgers. Don Sutton pitched every Opening Day from 1972-78, tying him with Don Drysdale  (1958-61, 1963, 1965, 1969) for the most Opening Day starts in Los Angeles with seven. Fernando Valenzuela had six.

As for the start of Cactus League play, Erik Bedard and Kershaw were already named starters for the first two games, Wednesday and Thursday. The scheduled relievers for Wednesday are Carlos Frias, Juan Nicasio, Sergio Santos, Adam Liberatore and Josh Ravin. For Thursday, Kershaw is to be followed by Joe Weiland, Brandon League, Chris Hatcher, Daniel Coulombe and Ryan Buchter.

Just a couple of bullet points to wrap things up:

• Jimmy Rollins and Yasiel Puig had a two-hour “Get to Know Me” conversation, reports J.P. Hoornstra of the Daily News. “You can’t make that happen,” Rollins said, “You can’t force it, to talk to somebody for two hours. It was a good thing and I was happy I did it.”
• Newest of the newly newly signed Mike Adams gave a status report to Bill Plunkett of the Register. An excerpt:
  

  Adams said his shoulder “as of right now it’s good.” He said he worked with his younger brother, Jason (a personal trainer in south Texas), this winter on some changes in his mechanics to put less stress on his shoulder. But he acknowledges he “wasn’t sure if a team was going to take a gamble on me” and see if those changes will work.