Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES — As anyone who’s been paying attention knows, the Dodgers and every other MLB club have been playing with a 28-man roster these first few weeks of the season. Due to the nearly 100-day lockout and the shortened Spring Training, the extra spots were added to the rosters in order to ease the transition back to “normal” for pitchers, some of whom were not really ready to go deep into ballgames on Opening Day.
Well, as of today, those days are officially over. The teams, by agreement, were forced to cut back their rosters to the standard 26-man squad by today. The Dodgers made a flurry of roster moves to make that happen over the last 48 hours, and now they are down to their required limits.
Kahnle and Cleavinger trade spots
On Sunday, the Dodgers swapped a couple of relievers. They activated Tommy Kahnle to the big-league club and sent Garrett Cleavinger back down to Oklahoma City. Kahnle, who has had considerable success in the American League, has been rehabbing from Tommy John and is just now ready to pitch in the Major Leagues. He pitched a 1-2-3 inning on Sunday, with two strikeouts. Leaving the mound, Kahnle was swarmed with hugs and attaboys from the Dodger bench, glad to see that he was indeed all the way back after an absence of nearly two years.
Cleavinger hasn’t figured into the Dodgers’ bullpen plans much this season, and his absence will barely be noticed. He’s only been in two games this season, and didn’t look that great in either appearance. He heads back to Oklahoma City with an ERA of 5.40 in those two outings, with a WHIP of an unacceptable 3.00. Unless he does something down on the farm to limit his baserunners, I don’t imagine we’ll see much of him this year.
Fulmer DFA, McKinstry back to OKC
The moves on Sunday didn’t do anything to reduce the roster size, so those moves came on Monday. The Dodgers announced on May 2nd that pitcher Carson Fulmer will be DFA’ed without ever throwing a pitch for the Dodgers this year. This former college teammate of Walker Buehler at Vandy has never quite caught on in the big leagues, even though he was drafted higher than Buehler. With the DFA, his future becomes even more uncertain.
In addition, utility man Zach McKinstry will be optioned to Oklahoma City. McKinstry is increasingly the odd man out in the Dodgers’ lineup. A versatile player, and a gamer, McKinstry made such a good impression when he got playing time early last year. But with the addition of Hanser Alberto and the decision to carry only three bench players at this point in the season, there is no real path for McKinstry to stay on the big league team. Which is a shame, cuz he was absolutely raking down in OKC earlier this year. Still, he will be a good insurance policy should any of the Dodgers regulars go down with injury.
A look at the roster now
The roster has now been trimmed, and there are still quite a few pitchers down with injury, but as of today, May 2nd, this is what it looks like:
- INFIELD (7): Freeman, Lux, Muncy, T. Turner, J. Turner, Alberto, Rios
- OUTFIELD (3): Taylor, Bellinger, Betts
- CATCHER (2): Smith, Barnes
- STARTERS (5): Buehler, Urias, Gonsolin, Anderson, Kershaw
- BULLPEN (9): Bickford, Bruihl, Graterol, Hudson, Kahnle, Kimbrel, Moronta, Phillips, Vesia
- NOTABLE IL PLAYERS: Treinen, Price, White, Heaney, Gonzalez, Ferguson
- LONG-TERM REHAB: Duffy, Nelson, May
