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PHOENIX -- We will see if the quick turnaround is long enough for bad blood to turn, although manager Don Mattingly said Friday that the Dodgers will not “start anything up” when they meet the Padres in a series that begins Monday in Los Angeles.
Big-money acquisition Zack Greinke, a second ace for the team behind Clayton Kershaw, suffered a fractured left collarbone when San Diego outfielder Carlos Quentin charged the mound after being hit by a pitch in the sixth inning of Los Angeles' 3-2 victory in San Diego on Thursday night.
“We are not MMA fighters or anything like that,” Mattingly said. "We are trying to win baseball games. That’s what we are trying to do every day. We don’t need to lose any more players or anything like that.
“My job is to make sure my guys are ready to play baseball. Time marches on.”
The Dodgers announced that Greinke will undergo surgery Saturday in which a rod will be inserted to stabilize his fractured clavicle. The team said Greinke will be out eight weeks, but that appears to be a best-case scenario for a free agent who signed a six-year, $147 million contract to be paired with Kershaw at the top of the Dodgers’ rebuilt rotation.
Quentin was suspended for eight games, which will cost him approximately $415,000 in salary, the league office announced Friday, and Jerry Hairston was suspended for one game. Matt Kemp, who ran into Quentin as they were leaving Petco Park on Thursday, was not suspended. Both Quentin and Hairston can play until the appeals process is exhausted.
Mattingly said Thursday night that Quentin should miss as much time as Greinke, and he softened that only slightly before the suspensions were announced Friday, saying it makes sense for “an eye-for-an-eye thing.”
The Dodgers will have a special focus when they play the Padres in their remaining 16 games this season, said left-hander Chris Capuano, who with Ted Lilly is a candidate to replace Greinke for the Tuesday start.
“Winning ballgames is the biggest revenge you can get. Especially trying to play the Padres tough and beating them as much as we can is the best thing we can do,” said Capuano, who struck out three in 1 2/3 innings of scoreless relief after replacing Greinke.
Asked about the upcoming series with the Padres, Hairston said: “If I could predict the future, I’d be a very, very wealthy man. We’ll see.
“A lot of the Padres players apologized for his actions. That sums it up. You never want to do anything foolish. You never want to do anything to jeopardize your team, obviously. We’ll see what happens.”
Quentin, who has been hit three times in his career by Greinke, said he charged the mound because of what Grienke said. He told reporters in San Diego that included a profanity.
“Everybody is talking about Zack and what he said,” Hairston said. "Zack was shocked. He was dumbfounded. He was like ‘What are you doing? I’m not trying to hit you.’ Zack is probably the nicest guy I have been around in the big leagues, and I’ve been around a while.
“He’s on the plate and he dives in. You’re going to get hit. At the beginning of my career, I used to be on the plate. I got hit a lot. If you don’t want to be hit a lot, then get off the plate.”
Injured shortstop Hanley Ramirez, who played the role of peacemaker in calming Kemp when the benches cleared, said the plane ride to Arizona in the wee hours was predictably difficult.
“Everybody was head down. At the same time, we know this game. You have to keep your mind stronger and keep your head up and keep going. We don’t have anything against (the Padres),” Ramirez said.
“I know everybody hates us. What are you going to do? That’s what happens when you are good. You are going to have haters. You are going to have lovers. You still have to go out there and do your job. Those things just make us stronger and stronger.
"Like soldiers. We are soldiers, and we are going to go all the way to the end.”
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