Infielder Nomar Garciaparra wasn't placed on the 15-day disabled list Monday. But he likely will be, for the third time this season, in the coming days.
The increasingly fragile Garciaparra suffered yet another injury on Sunday when Washington's Lastings Milledge slid into him during a fifth-inning tag play at third base. Garciaparra left the game after that inning and went for an MRI on Monday; he was diagnosed with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee. The initial prognosis is that Garciaparra will have "very little" activity over the next few days, then will progress to baseball activity "as tolerated." What that means isn't entirely clear at this point. But what is clear is that whenever Garciaparra is injured, he almost always misses more time than his original prognosis suggests he will.
Garciaparra left a Grapefruit League game on March 7 immediately after being hit in the right wrist by a pitch. An X-ray taken later that day showed no serious damage. Still, Garciaparra didn't play again until he was activated from the 15-day disabled list on April 16.
Ten days later, while playing third base, Garciaparra lunged for a ball hit up the left-field line by Colorado's Scott Podsednik and strained his left calf. He returned to the DL the following day and didn't play again until July 4.
GIANTS 7, DODGERS 6: Hiroki Kuroda had his third consecutive subpar outing since the All-Star break, giving up seven earned runs in just 3 2/3 innings Monday. The Dodgers almost came all the way back from seven runs down, scoring five in the fifth and one more in the sixth on, of all things, a pinch-hit, RBI single by Andruw Jones. But Jones would be the final baserunner for the Dodgers, who then made 13 consecutive outs to end the game.
