{"id":38549,"date":"2022-06-06T06:47:39","date_gmt":"2022-06-06T06:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nl-west-notes-kershaw-lovullo-tovar\/"},"modified":"2022-06-06T06:47:39","modified_gmt":"2022-06-06T06:47:39","slug":"nl-west-notes-kershaw-lovullo-tovar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nl-west-notes-kershaw-lovullo-tovar\/","title":{"rendered":"NL West Notes: Kershaw, Lovullo, Tovar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"text\">\n<p><strong>Clayton Kershaw<\/strong> tossed 59 innings over four innings of a minor league rehab start today, and <strong>Dodgers<\/strong> manager <strong>Dave Roberts<\/strong> told reporters (including <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FabianArdaya\/status\/1533610150983979013\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">The Athletic&#8217;s Fabian Ardaya<\/a>) that Kershaw will be activated from the 15-day injured list for his next outing.  This would put Kershaw in line to start against the Giants next weekend, as the two NL West rivals clash in a big series.<\/p>\n<p>Kershaw was placed on the IL on May 13 due to right SI joint inflammation, and while the injury wasn&#8217;t considered to be a big problem, any absence is cause for concern given both Kershaw&#8217;s lengthy injury history and his importance to the LA rotation.  Now in his 15th season, the future Hall-of-Famer is still in fine form, with a 1.80 ERA, 29.4% strikeout rate, and a tiny 2.8% walk rate over his first 30 innings of the 2022 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>More from the NL West\u2026<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>While the <strong>Diamondbacks<\/strong> have a modest 26-29 record, that is still a vast improvement from their 77-145 mark in 2020-21, and it has led to some renewed belief in manager Torey Lovullo.  &#8220;Some front office officials have urged ownership to give [Lovullo] an extension, \u201dUSA Today&#8217;s Bob Nightengale writes, but ownership is holding off for the time being.  The skipper is already under control beyond this season, as the extension signed last September guaranteed Lovullo&#8217;s deal for the 2022 season and added a club option for 2023, so the D&#8217;Backs technically don&#8217;t need to act with immediate urgency in locking Lovullo up .  This is Lovullo&#8217;s sixth season with Arizona, with an overall 363-400 record and one postseason appearance on his resume, plus NL Manager Of The Year honors in 2017.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ezequiel Tovar<\/strong> is showing why the <strong>Rockies<\/strong> consider him their shortstop of the future, as the 20-year-old is hitting .317 \/ .398 \/ .581 with 11 homers and 16 steals (in 17 chances) over 211 plate appearances at Double-A Hartford.  This offensive surge is very promising, as consistent hitting was considered the last piece of the puzzle for a player who is already considered a superb defender.  As The Denver Post&#8217;s Patrick Saunders notes, there is precedent for the Rox moving fast with promising shortstops, as <strong>Trevor Story<\/strong> played only 61 games at Triple-A and <strong>Troy Tulowitzki<\/strong> skipped Triple-A entirely prior to his big league debut.  Given that Tovar missed a full year of game development due to the canceled 2020 minor league season, the Rockies may not be quite as aggressive with a promotion this time around, but Tovar is certainly drawing attention.  Baseball America bumped Tovar all way up to the # 26 position on their midseason ranking of the game&#8217;s top 100 prospects.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!-- \/5067886\/300x250_2_MLB -->\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>    .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clayton Kershaw tossed 59 innings over four innings of a minor league rehab start today, and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including The Athletic&#8217;s Fabian Ardaya) that Kershaw will be activated from the 15-day injured list for his next outing. This would put Kershaw in line to start against the Giants next weekend, as &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/nl-west-notes-kershaw-lovullo-tovar\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">NL West Notes: Kershaw, Lovullo, Tovar<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11],"tags":[7273,17825,17826],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.mlbtraderumors.com\/files\/2022\/05\/USATSI_18222160-1024x715.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}