The Dodgers season so far is in disarray due to a rash of early injuries and possibly poor roster planning. Recently, Ned Colletti pointed fingers at Matt Kemp as being a reason for the slow start. While Matt Kemp on the most recent road trip slumped, he still is a league leader in most offensive categories. A real reason for the Dodgers poor start has been their poor pitching. Opening-Day starter Vicente Padilla has been ineffective through 4 starts and has posted a 7.06 ERA. He currently is on the DL with an inflamed radial nerve in the right forearm. There is no timetable for his return as the injury he has is not a common one for pitchers.

Hiroki Kuroda and Clayton Kershaw have held their own. They are also the only two starting pitchers with an ERA under 5. The next starter Chad Billingsley has enough potential to be a center piece chip in a Roy Halladay trade but has not lived up to the hype this year or the second half of last season. Through 4 games, Bills sports a 5.40 ERA. The coaching staff is holding out hope that he may have mentally overcome some of the issues he was facing as his last outing he posted 6 innings of 1 run ball his best outing of the young season so far.

Now we come to the major question marks. The fifth starter who broke camp with the Dodgers was knuckleballer Charlie Haeger. Haeger has been ineffective through 4 starts and 1 relief appearance posting a 7.45 ERA but provides Joe Torre flexibility with using a starting pitcher out of the bullpen in a emergency situation on short rest.

With Padilla’s injury, the Dodgers had to call up John Ely after just 3 triple-A starts to fill in against the red hot New York Mets. His final line was 6 innings with 5 runs allowed. Take away a mental blunder by Ely in a 4-run second inning and his final line might have been a little different.

Now Torre is faced with filling another starting spot on Saturday and that lucky person (could be you) is Carlos Monasterios. For those who do not know Monasterios, he was acquired by the Dodgers this offseason in the rule 5 draft from the Mets (via-trade with Phillies). With rule 5 draft picks, they have to stay on the major league roster for the entire season to stay under team control. Monasterios made the team out of the gate as the were winning by a lot guy go in and finish the game or were loosing by a lot finish the game guy. Never the less, he has done a decent job compiling a 1.69 ERA in 10.2 innings with his last 4 outings (8 1/3 innings) he has not allowed a run.

I think the question comes down to how can the team with the highest attendance in all of baseball last year be scrambling for pitchers who can produce this soon in the season? One word DIVORCE.