San Francisco Giants

Carl Crawford will be out of the lineup Tuesday night for the Dodgers' second game of the regular season. But it's not because left-hander Madison Bumgarner is starting for the San Francisco Giants or because there's anything wrong with Crawford's surgically repaired elbow. “We wanted to make sure we were able to wean him in the first couple series,” Mattingly said. Crawford was two for four with a double and a run scored in the Dodgers' season-opening victory over the Giants on Monday.

Clayton Kershaw's agent was at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, but a new deal between the Dodgers and their ace didn't appear imminent, according to people familiar with the situation who weren't authorized to speak on the matter. Kershaw's representatives were known to be discussing a contract extension with the Dodgers in the days leading up to opening day. Kershaw said in spring training that he didn't want negotiations to carry into the regular season. After his spectacular performance in the Dodgers' season-opening victory over the San Francisco Giants on Monday, Kershaw wouldn't say if that was still the case.

Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants matched the Dodgers' Clayton Kershaw zero for zero through the first six innings. Then Cain had to be taken out. The reason: He had already thrown 92 pitches. That could have been the difference in the Dodgers' season-opening 4-0 victory over the Giants on Monday. "That's what you've got to do when you're facing aces, get them out of the game quickly," Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said. Kershaw went the distance, throwing 94 pitches in a four-hit shutout.

All spring, Carl Crawford told anyone who would listen that he would be ready for the Dodgers' game on opening day. He told the trainers who stood in the batting cage counting his swings to protect his surgically repaired elbow. He told the doctors who found nerve irritation in his forearm and ordered him to stop throwing. He even told his manager, Don Mattingly, whose best-case scenario early on had Crawford starting the season a couple of weeks late. But Monday, after making good on his pledge and opening the season as the Dodgers' left fielder and leadoff hitter, Crawford offered a confession: He was bluffing the whole time.

Matt Kemp has heard the whispers: The Dodgers don't have chemistry. Kemp shook his head. “That's what I keep hearing people say,” he acknowledged. This view, or some variation of it, is the crux of every argument that a team other than the Dodgers will win the National League West. A record payroll of $230 million has afforded the Dodgers a lineup with five former All-Stars, including sidelined shortstop Hanley Ramirez, and a rotation topped by two former Cy Young Award winners.

Record-breaking major league contracts were the order of the day, but baseball's newest financial power may yet be heard from. People familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Friday that the Dodgers were having contract conversations with former National League Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw . The cost of securing Kershaw long term rose earlier Friday when right-hander Justin Verlander agreed to a $180-million,...

Deliver the champagne to Chavez Ravine and Anaheim. The Los Angeles Dodgers will edge out the San Francisco Giants by a game in the National League West division, while the Angels will tie the Oakland Athletics in the American League West. If baseball is played on paper, that's what should happen, according to mathematician Bruce Bukiet of the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Like the proverbial groundhog does each February, Bukiet emerges at the end of spring training season with his prognostications for America's national pastime.

As the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico prepared to play the World Baseball Classic championship game in front of huge chunks of empty seats at AT&T Park, the chief executive of the San Francisco Giants pronounced the event a success. "We'd do it again, sure," Giants CEO Larry Baer said Tuesday. Baer estimated a crowd of 30,000 to 32,000 for the title game. The semifinal games drew 27,527 and 33,683 to AT&T Park, which has a capacity of 41,815. The crowds probably would have been larger if the United States had not been knocked out of the tournament last week.

PHOENIX - Having won two of the last three World Series, the San Francisco Giants would be clear-cut favorites in the National League West in almost any other season. This isn't any other season. The Dodgers have transformed baseball's landscape, with their new owners investing a projected $230 million, which would be a record opening-day payroll. "It's gone from where the Dodgers were dominant to where the Giants have won two of the last three," Hall of Fame broadcaster Vin Scully said.

The commissioner's office has provided the Oakland Athletics with tentative guidelines for a potential move to San Jose, according to three people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss it. The existence of the guidelines does not necessarily mean the A's will move to San Jose soon, or at all. However, if the A's can satisfy the concerns of the league office, Commissioner Bud Selig could let club owners decide whether to approve the...