Surprisingly picked by Joe Torre as the Dodgers’ Opening Day starter, Vicente Padilla not so surprisingly allowed 18 runs in 21.2 innings before landing on the disabled list with a nerve problem in his forearm. Torre indicated yesterday that Padilla is unlikely to rejoin the rotation before June:
He is feeling better, but I don’t see him helping us this month ... just from the fact that when he is ready to pitch, I don’t want to say he is starting all over again, but he will have a lot of work to do to get back on a mound at this level.
Meanwhile, Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times writes that the Dodgers are “scrambling” to find “worthy candidates” to replace Padilla. Torre picking Padilla to start on Opening Day was bad enough, but when a contending team is thrown completely out of whack by an injury to a pitcher who hasn’t had an ERA below 4.40 since way back 2003 ... well, it’s not a great sign.