Story from Dodgers.com

Kyle Hendricks has pitched at Dodger Stadium before, but it was as a high schooler in front of a few hundred people.

Friday, the rookie will return home, but this time as a member of the Cubs. He’ll go against a Dodgers club that has won six straight games.

Hendricks grew up in Mission Viejo, Calif., which is just an hour from L.A., and he still lives there. He’ll have many friends and family at Dodger Stadium — although he’s not sure exactly how many — for his fourth Major League start Friday.

“I think it’s … good,” Hendricks said of having friends and family in attendance. “I can handle getting the tickets. Having everybody there, you can’t replace that.”

Hendricks, 24, has allowed five earned runs over 19 1/3 innings this season. He threw seven shutout innings against the Padres on July 22 and allowed one run on seven hits against the Cardinals on Sunday.

“I’ll prepare the same as always, watching a lot of video,” he said. “So I pitched three innings [against the Dodgers] in a start in Spring Training and faced a lot of their starting lineup, at least for one at-bat. That will help a lot to watch that video, how I pitched them there. Not seeing them won’t be a big deal now.”

The Dodgers will go with Dan Haren in the opener of the three-game set. Haren has dropped his last four starts, lasting 5 1/3 innings or fewer in all of them. In July, he posted a 9.47 ERA and a .329 batting average against.

Haren last pitched on July 23, when he allowed five runs on four hits and three walks in five innings against the Pirates, and had his start pushed back to Friday because of off-days last Thursday and Monday.

“It’s really gotten away from me the last four times out,” Haren said. “I was having a great year, I felt great throwing the ball, then a few starts ago it kind of snowballed and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.”

Cubs: Ramirez should be ready following DL stint

Cubs righty Neil Ramirez said he should be ready to return once his 15-day disabled list stint is up.

The organization sent Ramirez to Triple-A Iowa to give him some extra rest, but then placed him on the DL on Tuesday with soreness in his right triceps.

“I’ve been feeling better this year than I have in the past couple years, so everything I’ve been doing is starting to help out,” said Ramirez, who is on a strength program with trainer PJ Mainville and strength coach Tim Buss. “I want to finish the year strong and build up strength.”

Ramirez has allowed just three earned runs over 28 innings of relief this year. The 25-year-old has a 3.60 K/BB ratio and .0929 WHIP in his first Major League season.

Dodgers: No moves at Deadline

Dodgers general manager Ned Colletti said Wednesday night that the club didn’t plan to make any moves before Thursday’s non-waiver Trade Deadline, and that held up.

Los Angeles stood pat as the 4 p.m. ET Deadline came and went. There was some speculation that the club was in play for one of the top pitchers on the market — David Price or Jon Lester. But Lester went to Oakland and Price went to the Tigers just minutes before the Deadline.

Colletti said the organization had no interest in dealing any of its top three prospects — Corey Seager, Julio Urias or Joc Pederson.

“Maybe we were hindered by having three of the top 30 prospects, because everybody started there and tried to stay there,” Colletti said. “If I told you some of the players we asked for and the response was one of the three, you’d find it laughable, but that was the case.”

Worth noting
• Just before the Trade Deadline, the Cubs sent Emilio Bonifacio and reliever James Russell to the Braves for catching prospect Victor Caratini.

Steven Petrella is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Don’t miss a thing. Get breaking Santa Clarita news alerts delivered right to your inbox.

Do you have a news tip? Call us at (661) 298-1220, or drop us a line at community@hometownstation.com.

[node:title]

Article: [node:title]
Source: Santa Clarita News
Author: [node:author]