SAN DIEGO – When Los Angeles Dodgers bench coach Tim Wallach posted the original lineup in the visiting clubhouse here Saturday afternoon, Miguel Rojas was playing shortstop and batting seventh. Then trainer Stan Conte put Hanley Ramirez through a workout on the field, and Dodgers manager Don Mattingly re-wrote his lineup.
Ramirez, who injured his left leg slipping on the first-base bag and falling Friday night, was inserted at shortstop and batting second against the San Diego Padres.
“He looked really good. Everything was easy,” Mattingly said. “Early in the day, I don’t think Stan thought he was going to be able to go, but as he got here and got moving around, if we wouldn’t have known anything had happened, you couldn’t tell.”
Mattingly dropped Yasiel Puig, mired in an 0-for-19 slump, to the fifth spot in the batting order -- the first time all season Puig has hit lower than third. Mattingly said he wanted Ramirez batting second to get him an extra at-bat. He said Ramirez’s timing was the best it has been since he came off the disabled list Sunday. Ramirez had three hits Friday, including a towering home run.
When rosters expand Monday, Mattingly said the Dodgers likely will have “five or six” extra players called up from the minor leagues. One of those players will be outfielder Joc Pederson, 22, who has hit 33 home runs for Triple-A Albuquerque this season.
Mattingly said he won’t hesitate to use Pederson as a power left-handed hitter off the bench, though it is a role with which Pederson is unfamiliar. Interestingly, New York Yankees manager Clyde King used Mattingly as a pinch hitter when he was called up in September 1982. Mattingly got his first major league hit off Steve Crawford in the 11th inning of an Oct. 1 game after he replaced Graig Nettles at first base in the 10th. Mattingly was 21.
“I just think you look at him, you know what he can do, you know he can play and you use him however you want to use him,” Mattingly said.