Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Team

The latest stage in the development of Andre Ethier can be measured in more than the number of home runs he has hit or the runs he has driven in. Ethier, who went into the Dodgers' series opener in San Francisco on Monday leading the team with five home runs and 20 runs batted in, is drawing walks. He's also hitting left-handed pitching. The reason? "I guess I'm more cognizant of what's going on," said Ethier, who bats left-handed.

Clayton Kershaw had generated so much buzz in recent weeks that Manager Joe Torre spent nearly half his pregame meeting with reporters Monday answering questions about the budding ace. What has made the Dodgers pitcher so good, Torre was asked. Why has he been so coachable? Could he be the first or second option in a playoff rotation? "I certainly wouldn't be afraid to pitch him anywhere," Torre said.

The starting pitchers are giving up only a handful of runs. The relievers aren't giving up practically any. And still, it hasn't always added up to a Dodgers victory. The Dodgers have lost three of their last eight games despite the fact that their starting pitchers have posted a 2.13 earned-run average over that span and their relievers have pitched 10 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings. The problem? The Dodgers have scored only one or two runs in five of those games, forcing their pitchers to be practically perfect.

Chad Billingsley rarely speaks above a whisper in the best of times. And clearly these are not the best of times. Through the first 2 1/2 months of the season, the Dodgers right-hander was arguably the best pitcher in the National League, going 9-3 with a 2.72 earned-run average to earn a spot on the All-Star team. In the three months since, he hasn't even been the best pitcher on his team, going 3-7 with a 5.40 ERA. "I'm just trying to go out there and work on things," Billingsley says quietly, speaking to his shoes as he ties the laces.

He strolled coolly out of Cincinnati on Sunday night hauling a weekend stash of two homers, five runs batted in and a game-winning fly ball. Yet none of it was as impressive as this foreign object also found in his blue Dodgers duffel bag. A basketball. Matt Kemp travels with a basketball? "Sure, so we can play H-O-R-S-E," Kemp said. So you can play what? "In Colorado, our hotel has a gym. A bunch of us get together and shoot around; it's fun." Who wins?

This was more like a feast than a spoonful of gravy. Only hours after Manny Ramirez shrugged off the worst funk of his Dodgers tenure by saying he's reached the point in his career where "everything is gravy," the slugger homered and drove in three runs Tuesday night against the Milwaukee Brewers. The left fielder began the game hitting .167 with no runs batted in in his previous 10 games.

Back from his self-imposed exile in Miami, Manny Ramirez worked out at Dodger Stadium on Monday for the first time since being suspended for violating baseball's drug policy, a Dodgers spokesman confirmed. Ramirez hit, ran, threw and did some strength training at the ballpark, from which he had kept his distance until Monday. When he and Dodgers owner Frank McCourt met this month, they did so at Ramirez's apartment in Pasadena.

Dodger Stadium was probably never louder this season. But the roar of the capacity crowd turned into something that pierced eardrums the moment Manny Ramirez drove the only pitch thrown to him on Wednesday night and sent it screaming into the section of seats named in his honor. Grand slam.

Luck is with us in Los Angeles, for we get to hear verbal nuggets such as this one from the Dodgers' home opener Monday, courtesy of broadcaster Vin Scully, who is telling us about Travis Ishikawa of the Giants. Listen. "Ishikawa, last year he had a stretch where runners were in scoring position with less than two outs and he went seven for 11. That got everybody's attention.

Manny Ramirez has fallen to sixth place in fan voting for National League All-Star outfielders, making it increasingly unlikely that the highest-profile player suspended under baseball's drug policy would appear in the sport's summer showcase. The amount of votes standing between Ramirez and a starting spot in the All-Star game has nearly tripled over the last two weeks.