Marathon weekend in San Diego leads to change of plans for Bolsinger

When Mike Bolsinger’s flight left Oklahoma City Sunday, he was the OKC Dodgers’ scheduled starter for Monday against the Fresno Grizzlies.

When Bolsinger arrived in Califoia hours later (where the Triple-A team started a series in Fresno Monday), he was the Dodgers’ scheduled starter for today against the Cinciati Reds.

While Bolsinger was flying, the Dodgers and San Diego Padres were combining to throw 525 pitches in a 17-iing game at Petco Park – part of a 28-iings-in-24-hours marathon Saturday and Sunday that injured Dodgers pitcher Brett Anderson joked sounded like a youth travel-ball team’s touament schedule.

A call for arms was inevitable and the Dodgers made it, promoting Bolsinger and left-hander Luis Avilan from Triple-A. Right-hander Ross Stripling was demoted to OKC and reliever Chin-Hui Tsao was placed on the DL with a strained triceps muscle in his pitching arm – an injury that apparently cropped up after he walked three consecutive batters to lose Saturday’s game in the 11th iing and made him unavailable for Sunday’s extended affair.

Bolsinger will start today in place of Stripling, who pitched the final three iings in relief on Sunday. And the right-hander will probably stay in the rotation until left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu completes his minor-league injury-rehabilitation assignment. Ryu is scheduled to make his third rehab start (likely of five) on Wednesday for the OKC Dodgers with a retu to the Dodgers targeted for the first week or so of June.

For Stripling, the demotion to Triple-A did not come as a shock. In his first full season following Tommy John surgery in April 2014, the Dodgers plaed to limit his iings. They will do that in Triple-A now, where Stripling said he expects to make “shorter starts,” the first of which will likely be Friday (and last only three iings).

“It’s a bummer because you want to be in the big leagues,” Stripling said. “But the way they handled it was great. They kind of thought there would be a point in the season where we would do this.

“The idea is to have iings at the end of the year.”

Stripling threw 45 2/3 iings while going 2-3 with a 4.53 ERA for the Dodgers. He believes his iings cap this season is around 150 (after throwing just 67 1/3 last season).

“I think all along we were looking at some point near the end of May,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Once he made our roster, we wanted to figure out how to curtail some of his iings in the middle of the season so that we could use him in some capacity whether out of the ‘pen or as a starter in August, September – whenever that time might be. This just made sense for us.”

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Four outs

Twice in the three-game weekend series against the Padres, Roberts brought closer Kenley Jansen into games in the eighth iing to protect one-run leads. Neither time worked out. Jansen blew saves both nights, his first since last August.

With his setup options unreliable, Roberts has already brought Jansen into eighth iings four times. Last year, Jansen got more than three outs for just one of his 36 saves.

“It was a blown save but I sleep a lot better knowing Kenley had the ball in his hands,” Roberts said.

“Most people might want a clean iing and protect their save percentage. Kenley is all about wiing and helping the team win. He realizes that he’s the best person at the back end to give us that chance. Most of his saves have been low pitch counts. As far as usage, he feels great. He’s a large human who works very hard in the weight room.”

Notes

After one game with Class-A Rancho Cucamonga, Scott Van Slyke (back) is moving his rehab assignment to Triple-A Oklahoma City. Van Slyke is scheduled to play first base for the OKC Dodgers on Tuesday. … Right-hander Brandon McCarthy (Tommy John surgery) has resumed his throwing program after experiencing some discomfort last week.