Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

Not good, from Ken Gurnick at MLB.com:

MILWAUKEE — Shortstop Rafael Furcal had to be placed on the 15-day disabled list on Monday when his lower back injury turned out to be worse than the club had believed.

Management has attempted to acquire an emergency replacement for Furcal, who has been its best player this year. Assuming that doesn’t happen by Tuesday’s game with the Brewers, it is expected to purchase Luis Maza from Triple-A Las Vegas, where he is hitting .402, third in the Pacific Coast League.

Furcal did not fly to Milwaukee with the club on Monday, instead undergoing an MRI and receiving a cortisone injection in his sprained sacro-iliac joint. He was disabled retroactive to May 6, meaning he would be eligible to return on May 21, but with lower back injuries, there is no way to predict how long he will be out. He will begin rehab therapy on Wednesday.

Furcal, who suffered an almost identical injury last September, was said to be day to day, and wound up missing the final 12 games of the season. He’s already missed the past five games, the Dodgers losing the last four of them, while the offense has struggled with rookie Chin-lung Hu replacing Furcal at shortstop and Juan Pierre taking over the leadoff spot in the batting order.

Losing Furcal even for another nine days is a crushing blow to an offense that has no formidable force. He even leads the club with five home runs, along with a .366 average, 34 runs scored, 12 doubles, a .597 slugging percentage and a .448 on-base percentage.

The difference between a healthy and injured Furcal is best demonstrated by the fact that with a healthy Furcal in 2006, the Dodgers tied for the division lead. Furcal played injured the entire 2007 season and the Dodgers finished fourth.

Stream-of-consciousness reactions:

* Bad news for the offense, obviously. As I outlined earlier, this offense has been running as Furcal does, and with him out now for 9 more days - at the very, very least - everyone else has to pick up the slack.

* Get ready to see a whole lot more Juan Pierre. Without our real leadoff hitter, there’s no way Joe’s going to pass up the chance to use JP at leadoff every single day. I’m serious; I’d be floored if Pierre gets even a single game off before Furcal’s return. I admit, we don’t really have another option that stands out to leadoff; but why not give Russell Martin a crack at it? He’s got the second-highest OBP of anyone besides Furcal, and it’s not like he’s a liability on the bases. But I can’t imagine Torre ever trying that. No, it’s going to be JP all the time, which also means:

* Get ready to see a whole lot less of Andre Ethier. Torre seems to have committed to Matt Kemp in RF, which is smart, as Kemp’s been very good. But he’s also committed to letting Andruw Jones play through his issues in CF, and since as we just discussed Pierre isn’t sitting, Ethier might only get a shot to play now when Jones gets a day off. Once a week? Maybe?

* Here’s what you need to know about Luis Maza: He turns 28 in a month and has yet to make his big league debut. Granted, he’s on a Tiffee-like tear at Vegas, (.402/.465/.528 is certainly nothing to sneeze at), but when he had a full season in Triple-A Rochester for the Twins in 2006 at age 26, he put up a .207/.355/.308 stinker. So who knows. He’s spent the majority of his minor league career at 2B (485 out of 688 games), but he’s also put in time at SS, 3B, and OF. He’s just a stopgap.

* Of course, calling up Maza means another roster move; he’s not on the 40-man roster. Might this be the end of the line for Eric Stults?

* Get ready to see what Chin-Lung Hu is made of. We know his glove is gold, but his .208/.296/.229 line, granted in limited play, is hardly overwhelming. He showed plenty of ability with the bat last year in the minors; now’s the time to show you’ve got it, Chin-Lung.

* Or don’t get ready to see what Hu is made of, if the line “Management has attempted to acquire an emergency replacement for Furcal” means anything. I’m somewhat surprised to hear this; Hu’s pretty highly rated and it’s worth it to at least take as a positive from this situation that we get an opportunity to see what he can do on an everyday basis. Who’s available at SS, anyway? Names that come to mind that have been on the block are Jack Wilson, Felipe Lopez, and Juan Uribe. None of those are that appealing, and they’re all expensive, and wouldn’t like going back to a backup position. Pass. Go with Hu. He might actually already be the best non-starting SS in the major leagues right now. Why would you want anyone else? I’m actually going to be pretty upset if they swing a deal for some veteran retread instead of letting Hu man the fort for a week or two.

- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness

2008 Dodgers with Rafael Furcal: 18-13, 5.78 runs/game
2008 Dodgers w/o Rafael Furcal: 1-5, 1.83 runs/game

Obviously, this is a small sample size, and the absence of Rafael Furcal shouldn’t explain why someone like Jeff Kent is 3-for-26 in May thus far (dig this line: .115/.200/.192 this month), but it’s pretty obvious Furcal is the straw that stirs this drink, isn’t it? I mean, he’s only leading the team in BA, OBP, SLG, OPS, hits, runs, doubles, triples, and homers, all while playing well at the hardest defensive position on the field. After all, it’s one thing to say “the team is in an offensive slump”; and it’s quite another to make Brian “I’m 36 and this is my first start in two years” Moehler and Chris “that’s right, I carried a 7.96 ERA into this game” Sampson look like the second comings of Koufax and Maddux.

But it’s okay: most of the weekend we’d heard that Furcal being out was just a precaution, especially with off days around both ends of the Houston series, and that he’d definitely be back on Tuesday in Milwaukee. Right?

Dodgers shortstop Rafael Furcal, who has been sidelined five straight games with lower back pain, does not know when he will be able to return to the field.

 Dodgers manager Joe Torre was hopeful Furcal could be back to play in the series opener against the Brewers in Milwaukee on Tuesday. Furcal didn’t appear to have the same certainty.

“We have to wait and see how it feels,” Furcal told the Los Angeles Times. “This is the type of thing where it feels fine one day and it doesn’t the next.”

Oh good. Tuesday’s starter for Milwaukee is Carlos Villanueva, who carries in a 6.46 ERA on the season; I get the feeling he cannot wait for the game to start. So, here’s something you almost never see us say around here - the Dodgers need to shell out big money to pay a veteran even though there’s a highly-touted rookie ready to play. Yeah, we’re all about playing the kids here. But since Furcal is young enough (30 this season), productive enough (if you accept the fact that 2007 was an outlier since he was playing on a badly sprained ankle all season, his BA/OBP/SLG numbers have increased four seasons in a row), and most importantly, proven as a Dodger, there’s just no way you can let him go. Spend the money to keep him, figure out a post-Kent solution at 2B (the “move Andy LaRoche to 2B” contingent is picking up steam, and I admit it’s intriguing) and as a bonus, you finally have a highly-ranked prospect in Hu that we’d be okay with trading.

Moving from the infield to the outfield… what’s going on with Andre Ethier? He won the starting LF job, more or less, out of spring training. All he did through the end of April was put up a line of .329/.415/.482 in addition to his usual excellent outfield defense. So what does he get through ten games of May? Only four starts, including his 3-5 outing yesterday. So Andre, justifably, must be kind of upset that he’s getting the short end of the stick despite clearly outplaying Andruw Jones (still hitting .170) and Juan Pierre (who despite his early May hot streak, is still only OPS’ing .686, 162 points lower than Ethier’s .848, and is now 2 for his last 18). Andre?

Sunday’s start was just the third for Ethier since May 2. He played in right field while Matt Kemp moved to center. So he was asked if it was nice to get back in the lineup.

“I have no opinion,” Ethier said.

Is it obviously better than not being in the lineup?

“No opinion,” he repeated.

Dodgers manager Joe Torre has said repeatedly that he is OK if one of his outfielders is mad at him on a daily basis. He prepared himself for as much after ending his first spring training with the Dodgers carrying four capable outfielders into the start of the season.

So can something be read into Ethier’s no comments?

“There’s nothing to read into it and there’s nothing to look into it,” Ethier said. “There’s nothing to look into on anyone’s part.”

Seems pretty clear to me that he’s immensely unhappy about the situation, but is too professional to discuss it in the media. We’ve replaced the “Free Matt Kemp!” cause with a reminder for Andruw; maybe we need to start the “Free Andre Ethier!” campaign next? Because, you know - it’s not like the team is struggling offensively right now or anything. Why would you want to let the guy who’s got the third highest OPS on the team play, especially when the guy with the #1 OPS is out injured?

Scary prediction for the near future: you’ll notice I just said we’re playing without our #1 and #3 OPS leaders on a regular basis recently. You’ll also notice I haven’t yet said who our #2 man is. Think about this: if Furcal is forced to go to the DL - still a possibility - and Ethier is still buried in the OF when Nomar comes back in the next week or so, would it surprise anyone if he’s given the 3B job outright again and Blake DeWitt is benched or sent down? Because, DeWitt is 2nd on this team in OPS (!) at .877 right now. The injury to Furcal aside, what kind of team would play without their three best OPS producers, two of them willingly? This could get worse before it gets better.

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- Mike Scioscia’s tragic illness