Hong Chih Kuo

The Dodgers are expanding their Spanish-language cable TV broadcasts this season, upping the telecasts from 30 to 50 games in 2012. As part of an effort by Fox to increase its Spanish sports broadcasts throughout the Los Angeles area, and nationally, games will be on Prime Ticket and carried by Time Warner, Cox and Bright House cable companies. Fox is still negotiating with other providers. The Dodgers have hired Jaime Jarrin's son , Jorge Jarrin, and long-time coach Manny Mota as broadcasters for their Spanish-language telecasts.

Mariners 9, Dodgers 4 AT THE PLATE: Catcher Rod Barajas had two hits, including his second home run, lifting his spring batting average to .400. The left side of the infield continued to struggle, with shortstop Rafael Furcal hitless in three at-bats to drop his average to .125 and third baseman Casey Blake hitless in two at-bats to drop his average to .091. Blake has five strikeouts in 11 at-bats. ON THE MOUND: Hong-Chih Kuo made his Cactus League debut, giving up a long home run to Seattle's Jack Wilson but retiring three other batters.

AT THE PLATE: Juan Uribe, overcoming the physical "tightness" he has been feeling lately, doubled home two runs as the Dodgers ended a losing streak at eight games. Gabe Kapler singled in a run and Eugenio Velez singled home the winning run in the eighth inning. ON THE MOUND: Clayton Kershaw gave up 11 hits and six runs, five earned, in 52/3 innings. Hong-Chih Kuo, Blake Hawksworth and Ron Mahay each pitched a scoreless inning. EXTRA BASES: Kershaw was the first of the Dodgers' starting pitchers to bat this spring; he struck out and had a sacrifice bunt.

Get one promising pitcher back, lose another. And the loss may be greater than the gain. Randy Galvez, a right-hander who went 13-4 with Mexico City in the Mexican League in 1998, missed last season while rehabilitating from the Tommy John surgery. He is pitching for double-A San Antonio this season. But Hong-Chih Kuo, a left-hander, was lost for at least one season. He pitched three shutout innings, striking out seven, in his first game with Class-A San Bernardino--his professional debut.

Rookie right-hander Rubby De La Rosa , one of the few pleasant surprises in a turbulent season, became another source of despair for the Dodgers on Monday night. An MRI exam De La Rosa underwent in the afternoon revealed the 22-year-old rookie right-hander had a sprained elbow ligament that could sideline him for the remainder of the season. The Dodgers' medical staff hasn't decided on a course of treatment, but surgery is a possibility, a team spokesman said. Complaining of soreness in his elbow, De La Rosa was placed on the 15-day disabled list before the Dodgers learned of the extent of his injury.

If the Dodgers are going to surprise their doubters this year, it figures it has to be with pitching. No one is expecting them to be an offensive juggernaut. For openers, that's pretty much the way it went down. The Dodgers got a masterful opening night start by Clayton Kershaw, one shut-out inning by Hong-Chih Kuo, and one shaky ninth by Jonathan Broxton to edge the Giants, 2-1, in their 2011 season opener Thursday night at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw threw seven shutout innings, struck out out nine and gave up only four hits and one walk.

Andre Ethier has been the best part of the Dodgers this spring. It's not that he's having a nice spring - he's having a great one - but that more than any other player, they need ol' Jekyll and Hyde to have a strong season . Any chance the Dodgers have of rising up from a club that was barely above .500 last season to a contender in this one pretty much starts with Ethier returning to his line-drive, slugging self. Since there was no significant offseason addition to the lineup, improvement rests with improved play by Juan Uribe, James Loney and Ethier.

Manager Joe Torre sent his newly named opening-day starter to the mound with the intention of stretching him out, only for him to last just 4 1/3 innings as owner Frank McCourt looked on from the Dodgers' suite at Camelback Ranch. McCourt's most expensive free-agent signing of the winter at $5.025 million, Vicente Padilla was pounded for five runs and eight hits in an 8-4 loss to the Kansas City Royals. But Padilla said he was encouraged by how he felt, pointing out the movement of his sinker and attributing the Royals' four-run outburst in the fifth inning to bad luck.

The first pitch floated in and soared out, banging hard against the left-field wall, turning the quaint stadium deathly quiet. What on God's unforgiving earth does Hong-Chih Kuo do now? He spent the last month sidelined with an anxiety disorder. The first pitch of his comeback is hammered nearly 400 feet. What happens next? Does he give in to the stage fright that buckled him in Pittsburgh? Is he swallowed by the yips that nipped him two seasons ago? What kind of sick joke is this, anyway?

Reporting from Philadelphia — Chris Reed was second-team all-league as a senior at Reseda Cleveland High. He rarely pitched in his first two years at Stanford. In a conference call Tuesday, the left-hander talked about how he emerged from obscurity to become the Dodgers' top draft pick and the 16th overall pick Monday in Major League Baseball's amateur draft. "It's obviously a dramatic transformation from where I was," Reed said. "I worked hard to get here. " Reed, who became Stanford's closer this year, said he made a conscious decision to rededicate himself to baseball last spring.