Dodgers set to size up 6 candidates for 5th starter

Tomko and Hendrickson are two possibilities.

The competition figures to be fierce for final starting spot at spring training.
By Tony Jackson
dailybreeze.com

For some clubs, the fifth spot in the starting rotation is a veritable afterthought. For some clubs, it is destined to be filled by some rag-armed poster boy for mediocrity, someone who can tolerate being skipped every time there is an off-day, doesn’t mind doing occasional mop-up duty out of the bullpen and is fairly satisfied just to hold down a major-league roster spot.

For the Dodgers, who officially open spring training on Friday in Vero Beach, Fla., the battle for that final starting job will be the most compelling story of the next six weeks. And that alone speaks volumes of how far the Dodgers have come in the past year.

In 2006, this team went to camp having been quickly patched together over the winter by new general manager Ned Colletti, who got the job only after several others withdrew from consideration because of the organization’s league-wide image problem.

But Colletti and his handpicked manager, Grady Little, now have rebuilt the club not only to the point that it made the playoffs last fall, but to where it now boasts arguably the league’s deepest rotation.

That is why the only thing left to hash out is who gets to pitch on the rare days when Jason Schmidt, Derek Lowe, Randy Wolf and Brad Penny are not scheduled.

The Dodgers’ own version of Survivor will start with six contestants.

Two of them, veterans Mark Hendrickson and Brett Tomko, each has the luxury of knowing there is a bullpen spot waiting for him if he doesn’t land in the rotation.

“Whatever happens in the competition for the fifth spot will also have an impact on the competition for bullpen spots,” Colletti said.

The rest — Chad Billingsley, Hong-Chih Kuo, Eric Stults and longshot D.J. Houlton — know they could start the season in the minors.

While it’s impossible to identify a favorite at this stage, club officials probably are rooting for Billingsley to emerge. The Dodgers’ top pitching prospect for several years now, Billingsley struggled in his big-league debut last season despite going 7-4 with a 3.80 ERA.

His problems stemmed from throwing too many pitches and walking too many batters (58 in 90 innings), an issue that has plagued him throughout his professional career and might not be fixable. But Billingsley, still just 22, is potentially devastating as a power pitcher, a fact that makes all those deep counts a little more tolerable.

Kuo, 25, was awful out of the bullpen last year, going 0-4 with a 5.34 ERA. But he turned in six scoreless innings in his first career start Sept. 8 against the New York Mets and stayed in the rotation thereafter, going 1-1 with a 3.07 ERA. He also displayed more poise than the younger Billingsley, a fact that might make Kuo the favorite going into the spring.

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