--RHP Ronald Belisario continues to make himself a compelling story after making the team out of minor league camp. He has yet to allow a run in three appearances spanning 4 2/3 innings, and he has given up just two hits and a walk while striking out eight of the 18 batters he has faced. Belisario, who was late to spring training because of visa issues in his native Venezuela, was part of the Dodgers' first round of cuts March 6 and was never officially promoted back to big-league camp, although it became clear when he accompanied the team back to California for a series of exhibition games just before the start of the season that he had a shot of making the club.
--RHP Chad Billingsley continues to look like a legitimate staff ace despite his notorious failures in last year's National League Championship Series. After dominating the Giants Monday, striking out 11 without a walk in an 11-1 Dodgers win, Billingsley has gone 6-0 with a 2.93 ERA in his last seven regular-season starts dating to Aug. 30. Billingsley has three career games of 10 or more strikeouts. BY THE NUMBERS: 23 1/3 -- Innings pitched by the Dodgers' bullpen on the club's season-opening, seven-game trip to San Diego and Arizona, a stretch during which not one Dodgers starter survived past the sixth inning until Randy Wolf went seven-plus on Sunday. The primary culprit was early-inning pitch counts and walks, especially by the young trio of Chad Billingsley, Clayton Kershaw and James McDonald at the back end. They combined to walk 11 batters in 13 1/3 innings.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "Our offense was always going to come around. It just took a little while. We still have a long way to go. Mr. (Joe) Torre has seen this type of thing before, because he has been around this game a long time, since before I was born. Since before my parents were born, in fact, because my parents are only 49 and 51." -- 2B Orlando Hudson after the team's struggling lineup finally broke out for 11 runs on Saturday night at Arizona.
