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The Colorado Rockies have hired Bud Black as their manager heading into the 2017 season, the club announced Monday.

FanRag Sports’ Tommy Stokke first reported the decision.

Black was the manager of the San Diego Padres from 2007 to 2015, accumulating a 649-713 career record in nine seasons. He was fired during the 2015 season after starting the year with a 32-33 record.

Although Black never led San Diego to the playoffs, he won the 2010 National League Manager of the Year award after helping guide the squad to a 90-72 record.

Padres players were quick to come to Black’s defense after the team relieved him of his duties.

“The way that Buddy ran the ship around here was fine,” pitcher James Shields said at the time, per ESPN.com. “We respect him as a manager and a man. As players, we’ve got to do a better job. It’s up to us as players to figure it out, try not to put blame on anybody.”

According to James Wagner of the Washington Post, the Washington Nationals reportedly intended on hiring Black to become their manager before the 2016 season, but negotiations broke down because of contract concerns. According to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, Washington only offered him a one-year deal worth $1.6 million, which was “considerably lower than he anticipated.”

He instead spent the year working as a member of the Los Angeles Angels front office.

The 59-year-old manager will take over a Rockies team that finished in third place in the NL West with a 75-87 record last season. Former manager Walt Weiss, whose contract was set to expire, stepped down at the end of the year.

Although the Rockies haven’t finished with a winning record in the last six years, hitters such as Nolan Arenado, Carlos Gonzalez and 2016 batting champion DJ LeMahieu provide reason for hope in Colorado if Black can maximize the team’s talent.

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Only the Chicago Cubs deserve to look back onto the 2016 Major League Baseball season. For every other organization, it is now time to look forward.

That made the timing of Saturday’s Fall Stars Game, the showcase of the Arizona Fall League’s best players, perfect.

And no, the Cubs’ Kyle Schwarber did not play in the game, though he played two Arizona Fall League games in order to get ready for the World Series.

But a host of top prospects did play and shine in the game, giving reason for a handful of organizations to be excited about the future. Who among them stood out the most?

Note: All prospect rankings are courtesy of MLB.com.

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Managers matter, and anyone who doesn’t think so must have missed the World Series.

No, this isn’t about whether Joe Maddon misused his bullpen or about whether Terry Francona could have done anything more to help the Cleveland Indians close out a series they led three games to one.

This isn’t about any decision Maddon or Francona made this week or last. It’s about the decision the Chicago Cubs made two years ago to hire Maddon and the one the Indians made two years earlier to bring in Francona—decisions that paid off and brought both teams to the World Series this year.

It’s about the decision the Arizona Diamondbacks made Friday to hire Torey Lovullo, who has many of the same abilities that make Maddon and Francona two of the best managers in baseball. Like them, he not only understands the game, but also understands the culture, and more than that, he understands dealing with people.

Who knows, maybe it even helps to have a connection with the Boston Red Sox, the team Lovullo served for the last four seasons as John Farrell’s bench coach. Francona managed the Red Sox, and Maddon interviewed there and was runner-up when Francona got the job. Even Dave Roberts, a first-year hit as the Los Angeles Dodgers manager, was previously best known for his part in the Sox’s curse-breaking run to the 2004 World Series title.

Roberts and Lovullo have other similarities, sharing an alma mater. (Although, the 51-year-old Lovullo played at UCLA nearly a decade before the 44-year-old Roberts.) Both have an appreciation of the numbers that play such an important part in the modern game, and both have the ability to connect with anyone they meet.

“Dave makes everyone he talks to feel like they’re his best friend, and it’s genuine,” Dodgers first base coach George Lombard said in September.

Lovullo is like that, too.

It’s why he was able to fit in so seamlessly as the acting Red Sox manager late last season, when Farrell left the team for cancer treatment. Lovullo handled a touchy situation with such ease that he instantly went to the top of the list of managerial candidates.

Because Farrell’s health status remained somewhat uncertain when the season ended, Red Sox general manager Dave Dombrowski worked out a deal where Lovullo would agree to stay on in Boston for another year, working as the bench coach as long as Farrell was able to return.

Farrell returned, the Red Sox won the American League East and Lovullo’s star didn’t dim. In fact, when the Diamondbacks hired Mike Hazen to run their front office, Lovullo immediately became the leading candidate to join him as manager.

Hazen and Lovullo were close in Boston, where Hazen worked under Ben Cherington and then under Dombrowski. They go back further than that, back to when Hazen worked in the Indians front office and Lovullo was just getting started as a minor league manager.

Lovullo spent 10 seasons managing in the minors, experience that doesn’t guarantee big league success (Ryne Sandberg spent plenty of time in the minors, too) but can’t hurt. (Both Maddon and Francona did it, too.)

What matters most, of course, is whether Lovullo will be given players capable of doing what Maddon’s Cubs or Francona’s Indians did. He starts with a team that was one of baseball’s biggest underachievers in 2016, a team that had championship aspirations but instead lost 93 games.

Still, the Diamondbacks have a perennial MVP candidate in Paul Goldschmidt and a Cy Young winner in Zack Greinke. They have A.J. Pollock, whose injury on the eve of Opening Day helped sink the 2016 season.

It would be nice if they had Ender Inciarte and Dansby Swanson, too, but the Shelby Miller trade with the Atlanta Braves turned out to be the worst move of last winter.

It’s not the best of situations, especially with a history of ownership intervention and limitations on payroll. But ownership seems committed—for now, anyway—to the new front office. There’s no doubt Hazen will be committed to Lovullo.

He’ll walk in facing a challenge, but every new manager does. Maddon came to Chicago with a big budget and plenty of young talent on the way, but he took over a team that had five straight losing seasons and a century of failure. Francona came to Cleveland with some nice talent beginning to develop, but he took over a team with a limited budget coming off a 94-loss season.

In his first year with the Cubs, Maddon won the NL Wild Card and Manager of the Year award. In his first year with the Indians, Francona did the same in the AL.

Neither one has had a losing season since.

Both came in and changed the culture completely. Talk to anyone in Chicago or anyone in Cleveland, and you’ll hear volumes about the difference the manager made.

Can Lovullo do the same in Arizona? We’ll see, but I think he can.

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

Follow Danny on Twitter and talk baseball.

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The Arizona Diamondbacks filled their manager vacancy by hiring Boston Red Sox bench coach Torey Lovullo.

The Diamondbacks confirmed the move on Monday, sharing an image of Lovullo signing his contract:

“I want to aim as high as possible,” Lovullo told reporters afterward. “I am very optimistic that we have the capabilities of doing something special.”

John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 in Phoenix initially reported the Diamondbacks would hire Lovullo on Nov. 4.

Lovullo had been Boston’s bench coach since 2013 after previously serving two seasons on manager John Farrell’s staff with the Toronto Blue Jays.

He was interim manager for the Red Sox in 2015 for 49 games while Farrell underwent chemotherapy, posting a 28-21 record.

The 51-year-old former MLB infielder played for seven different teams during parts of eight seasons, spending most of his time in the minors.

Aside from his stint as Red Sox interim manager, Lovullo managed at the Single-A, Double-A and Triple-A levels from 2002 through 2010. He won a World Series title with Boston as a coach in 2013.

Lovullo takes over a D-backs team that finished under .500 in each of the past two years under Chip Hale. They haven’t reached the postseason since 2011 and have just one playoff berth in the past nine years.

Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports believes Lovullo may prove to be the right man for the job in the desert:

ESPN’s Jim Bowden agrees with that assessment:

Arizona won only 69 games last season despite making a big splash during the offseason, but there is plenty of talent in place.

With Zack Greinke as the ace starter and a lineup that includes the likes of Paul Goldschmidt, A.J. Pollock, Jake Lamb, Jean Segura and Yasmany Tomas, Lovullo has a lot to work with.

Lovullo has a winning pedigree as a bench coach, and if he can alter the losing culture that has overtaken the Diamondbacks in recent years, they have a chance to be contenders in 2017 and beyond.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Clayton Kershaw‘s worst postseason misadventures have mostly been tales of his having it and then losing it.

In Game 6 of the National League Championship Series, he never had it.

The Los Angeles Dodgers‘ ace left-hander was long gone by the time Yasiel Puig grounded into a double play to close a 5-0 win for the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Saturday night—sending them to their first World Series since 1945 and that much closer to their first championship since 1908. After setting out in his latest attempt to save the Dodgers from elimination, Kershaw lasted only five innings and allowed all five of Chicago’s runs.

That only four of those runs were earned is a small consolation prize. Kershaw’s career postseason ERA is up to 4.55 anyway. That’s the highest of any pitcher with at least 85 postseason innings.

And as noted by Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, Kershaw’s Game 6 performance was just the latest case of his being at his worst when the Dodgers need him most:

This isn’t the only reason L.A. has yet to turn any of its four straight NL West titles into a pennant or a World Series. But it is a reason. And a big one, at that.

Of course, the Dodgers may not have staved off elimination Saturday even if Kershaw had pitched like the three-time Cy Young winner they know him to be. Chicago pitchers Kyle Hendricks and Aroldis Chapman combined to allow only four baserunners, and all four were erased on three double plays and a pickoff. It was 27 up, and 27 down. In circumstances like those, there’s only so much a starting pitcher can do.

It is the primary function of the starting pitcher, however, to at least give his team a chance to win. Kershaw couldn’t even do that.

The vibrations were bad from the beginning. After allowing only two hits and no runs in seven innings in a 1-0 win in Game 2, Kershaw served up a pair of hits and a run to the first two batters he faced Saturday when Dexter Fowler doubled and Kris Bryant singled him home. Then there was an error by Andrew Toles in left field that set up Ben Zobrist for a sacrifice fly.

At the time, Toles’ error sounded like the opening notes of a familiar tune.

Kershaw’s postseason failures are a compelling narrative, but within it is contained a subplot of his teammates letting him down. As August Fagerstrom covered at FanGraphs, it’s typically been the guys in the Dodgers bullpen who have left him unsupported. The L.A. defense’s failure to help him seemed like the next logical step.

But it was also hard to ignore just how un-Kershaw he looked in the first inning. After needing only 84 pitches to get through seven innings in Game 2, he needed 30 to get through one in Game 6. His velocity was there, but he couldn’t get his fastball to go where he wanted it to.

Kershaw couldn’t fix that as the evening wore on, and it became apparent as he threw more and more pitches that he was dealing with another problem. His curveball, one of the great weapons of mass destruction in the sport, was not there. 

Per Brooks Baseball, he threw only 15 of them out of 93 pitches. And as ESPN.com’s Keith Law and many others observed, few of them were any good:

This seemed to become as obvious to Cubs hitters as it was to everyone watching at Wrigley Field or at home. They had come out swinging against Kershaw to begin with and only seemed to grow more comfortable once they realized they could sit on his fastball and slider.

Willson Contreras and Anthony Rizzo did the honors of demolishing both pitches. Contreras deposited a hanging slider in the left field bleachers in the fourth inning. Rizzo went even further into the right field bleachers when he jumped on a sidearm fastball in the fifth inning.

“I think that the first thing I saw is the Cubs’ hitters, they had a great game plan tonight,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, per Ken Gurnick and Carrie Muskat of MLB.com. “And there was a couple mistake sliders that they took advantage of. But they were running counts, they used the whole field, and there was traffic all night for Clayton. And he gave it everything he had, but when they did—when he did make a mistake, they made him pay.”

Officially, Saturday’s outing is not the worst postseason performance of Kershaw’s career.

Per ESPN.com, he put up a game score of 39. He’s done worse in two starts since the Dodgers began their run four years ago: Game 6 of the 2013 NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals and Game 1 of the NLDS against the Cardinals the next year.

But while Kershaw’s latest effort may not be his worst on paper, it may be the worst in practicality. He at least offered glimmers of hope with two shutout innings in the former and six one-run innings in the latter. A glimmer of hope never even appeared on the Chicago horizon Saturday.

Credit where it’s due: There was never a feeling that the Dodgers had the Cubs right where they wanted them even after they took a 2-1 series lead thanks to Kershaw and Rich Hill in Games 2 and 3. Beating a team that won 103 games in the regular season was never going to be that easy. In outscoring the Dodgers 23-6 in the final three games of the series, the Cubs proved just that.

“The better team won the series,” said Roberts, per Dylan Hernandez of the Los Angeles Times.

The thing about aces, though, is that they’re supposed to be the equalizers.

A truly great starting pitcher can level any playing field and turn a squad of underdogs into snarling beasts that rip all reasonable expectations to shreds. Madison Bumgarner did it in 2014. Josh Beckett did it in 2003. Et cetera.

Kershaw has the power to do this. It’s not the constant favor of Lady Luck that’s allowed him to carve out a career 2.37 ERA and the best adjusted ERA in history. He is a perfect pitcher, combining excellent stuff with pinpoint command and a competitive fire that can melt flesh right off the bone.

But for the life of him, he just can’t get his many talents to stick in October. And until he does, disappointment will keep finding the Dodgers.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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After suffering through back-to-back shutouts in Games 2 and 3 of the National League Championship Series, the Chicago Cubs‘ slumbering offense awoke for a 10-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4 to tie the series at two games apiece.

Addison Russell and Anthony Rizzo, who had both been slumping badly throughout the postseason, both homered to trigger the Chicago attack. Both men had three hits in the game, with Russell scoring two runs and driving in two while Rizzo scored two and drove in three runs.

While the Cubs got back to work at the plate, the Dodgers were held to six hits and committed four errors. 

The Cubs, whose 103-58 record was the best in baseball during the regular season, have seemingly recaptured the momentum that had disappeared in their consecutive losses.

They will attempt to regain the lead in the series Thursday night in Game 5 at 8:08 p.m. ET at Dodger Stadium, sending left-handed ace Jon Lester to the mound to face Kenta Maeda of the Dodgers. The game will be televised on FS1, and the live stream is available on Fox Sports Go.

Some thought the Dodgers would send Clayton Kershaw to the mound in Game 5 on short rest, but Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts opted to go with Maeda.

The Washington Nationals tagged Maeda with a loss in the National League Division Series, and he allowed three runs on four hits in Game 1 against the Cubs.

Roberts explained his decision to go with Maeda to the media prior to Game 4.

“Well, I think that [Thursday] isn’t a deciding game,” Roberts said, per CBSSports.com. “It’s not an elimination game. And I think the accumulation of [Kershaw’s] usage over the last 10 days plays a factor in our decision.”

Lester has been in good form this postseason, as he is 1-0 with a 0.64 earned run average. In Game 1 of the NLCS, he gave up one run and four hits in six innings. Manager Joe Maddon replaced him after that, even though it looked like he could have gone further after throwing just 77 pitches.

Lester is coming off a strong regular season that included a 19-5 record, a 2.44 ERA and a 1.016 WHIP. He also struck out 197 batters and walked 52 in 202.2 innings.

Lester has also had success throughout his career in the postseason. The 6’4″, 240-pound Tacoma, Washington, native has a 2.57 ERA and 1.027 WHIP in 18 career appearances.

Lester’s status as one of the best money pitchers in baseball helps the Cubs in the eyes of the oddsmakers. Chicago is a -151 (bet $151 to win $100) favorite to take the 3-2 lead in the series, according to Odds Shark. The Dodgers are +141 (bet $100 to win $141) underdogs in the game.

Kershaw is scheduled to pitch Game 6 of the series on Saturday night against Kyle Hendricks. If the series goes the full seven games, Rich Hill of the Dodgers and Chicago’s Jake Arrieta are likely to be slated for a rematch.

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You know that thing about momentum being the next day’s starting pitcher? The Los Angeles Dodgers are about to put that to an interesting test.

The Dodgers had all the momentum over the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series, responding to a Game 1 loss with back-to-back shutouts in Games 2 and 3. But then came a 10-2 drubbing at Dodger Stadium in Game 4 on Wednesday. The momentum is with the Cubs again.

And they have ace left-hander Jon Lester ready to take the mound for Game 5. He might have been opposed by Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers’ own ace lefty, if manager Dave Roberts had made the bold call of starting him on three days’ rest for the second time this postseason.

Instead, Roberts is giving the ball to Kenta Maeda. As he implied after Game 4, per Arash Markazi of ESPN.com, the situation simply doesn’t warrant going to Kershaw:

This checks out. It’s a best-of-seven series. The Dodgers and Cubs have each won two games. Roberts need not act like tickets to the World Series or tickets home are on the line.

Still, it’s not hard to guess where the Cubs come down on this matter. After going into Game 4 with zero runs since a five-run explosion in the eighth inning of Game 1, they breathed some life into their bats in Wednesday’s blowout. Facing Kershaw in Game 5 would have threatened to suck that life right out again.

He is Clayton Kershaw, after all. He has three Cy Youngs. He had a 1.69 ERA this season. Most recently, he shut out the Cubs on two hits in seven innings in Game 2. He also has a good track record on three days’ rest in the postseason, putting up a 3.21 ERA in four starts.

For his part, Maeda is not a bad pitcher. The Japan native put up a solid 3.48 ERA in his first MLB season this year. He struck out over a batter per inning and, per Baseball Savant, ranked among the leaders in average exit velocity at 86.0 mph.

The Cubs weren’t too scared of him in Game 1, however. They got to Maeda for three runs on four hits and three walks in four innings. 

That performance kept up a trend of not-so-good starts when Maeda only gets four days of rest. He had a 3.97 ERA in such situations in the regular season. When he takes the mound Thursday, he’ll be on four days’ rest once again. Cue ominous music.

“This time around, I think I can better imagine how I’m going to get these guys out,” Maeda said ahead of Game 4, per Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times. “I remember how each hitter reacted to a certain pitch, so I’m going to base off that when I pitch again.”

Simply being sharper with location would be a good idea. Maeda made mistakes in Game 1, and BrooksBaseball.net shows the Cubs didn’t miss a couple of them. Otherwise, they waited him out and took their walks.

Maeda is at his best when he’s working the outside edge of the zone with his fastball and getting hitters to chase off-speed. That’s not only where he gets his whiffs, but as Baseball Savant shows, most of his soft contact as well. 

Trouble is, the Cubs don’t do much chasing outside the zone. They did that at a smaller rate than all but five other teams this season. If they can force Maeda in the zone, they can beat him.

That’s not something Kershaw has to worry about most days. He works in the zone as much as any starting pitcher not named Rich Hill. He does that because he has the stuff to do it. It’s no wonder he silenced the Cubs in Game 1, not to mention all the other teams he’s ever stifled.

There’s also the long-game portion of this matter. If Kershaw were starting Game 5, he could be used in relief if needed in a Game 7 on Sunday. After what he did in Game 5 of the National League Division Series, that’s an appealing hypothetical.

But does this mean Roberts is making an obvious mistake by not starting Kershaw in Game 5? Not really.

As promising as Kershaw’s track record on three days’ rest may be, the Dodgers have no idea how he can manage two starts on three days’ rest within the same postseason—much less two starts on three days’ rest within the same postseason following an injury-marred regular season.

Make no mistake, these are scary unknowns. Scarier than any matchup nitpicks to be made about Maeda and the Cubs. Too scary to risk on a game that doesn’t need to be won.

And while getting Maeda a couple extra days of rest would be ideal, the fact he would be pitching away from Dodger Stadium in Game 6 may have rendered that moot. He had a 3.74 ERA on the road in 2016, compared to 3.22 at home.

Roberts is effectively gambling on that split. If it works, he’ll have Kershaw ready for the kill on regular rest in Game 6 back in Chicago on Saturday. If it doesn’t, the Dodgers could ask for a worse duo to pin their hopes of a comeback on than Kershaw in Game 6 and Hill in Game 7.

If the Dodgers were going into Game 5 looking to punch their ticket to the World Series or stave off elimination, this conversation would look entirely different. Either circumstance would have made starting Kershaw on short rest again awfully tempting.

But that’s not the situation. The Dodgers are not in a desperate hour. And as such, they can afford to roll the dice on a tough matchup in Game 5 if it means having Kershaw fully locked and loaded for a Game 6 that’s happening no matter what.

Not starting Kershaw in Game 5 may end up hurting the Dodgers. But it’s not going to kill them.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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The Los Angeles Dodgers are in the driver’s seat in the National League Championship Series.

Now, rookie Julio Urias can steer them to the brink of a World Series berth.

After defeating the Chicago Cubs 6-0 in Game 3 of the NLCS on Tuesday, the Dodgers hold a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven tussle. They’re two victories away from their first trip to the Fall Classic since 1988.

So far this postseason, L.A. has started ace Clayton Kershaw, Japanese import Kenta Maeda and trade-deadline acquisition Rich Hill. Its bullpen, headlined by closer Kenley Jansen, has taken care of the rest.

In Game 4, however, skipper Dave Roberts will hand the ball to Urias, who will become the youngest starting pitcher in MLB playoff history at 20 years and 68 days old, per Eric Stephen of True Blue L.A. (h/t Adam McCalvy of MLB.com). He’s slated to break Bret Saberhagen’s record, as the Kansas City Royals starter was 20 years, 175 days old when he pitched in the 1984 ALCS.

No pressure, kid. 

“Julio, I think that we expect him to just go out there and compete,” Roberts said, per McCalvy. “Use his pitch mix and go after these guys, give us a chance to win a baseball game. It’s what Julio has done all year long.” 

Specifically, it’s what he did in the second half.

In 40.2 innings after the All-Star break, Urias posted a 1.99 ERA with 40 strikeouts. More impressively, he boasted a 1.26 ERA in 35.2 innings since Aug. 8. He has consistently shown the stuff of the standout stud Los Angeles believes he’ll become.

Now, he can prove himself on baseball’s biggest, brightest stage.

These Cubs are potent, even though they’ve scored zero runs in the last two games against L.A. Their lineup is stuffed with budding superstars who can change everything with a single swing.

If you’re looking at backstory, Urias made two starts against the Cubs in the regular season.

On June 2, he yielded eight hits and five earned runs in five innings in a 7-2 loss at Wrigley Field. It was just the second start of his MLB career. He was still 19 years old. He was in the most historic, renowned ballpark in the National League. It wasn’t exactly a fair display of his talent.

On Aug. 27, however, he pitched six innings of one-run ball with eight strikeouts in a 3-2 victory at Chavez Ravine—where he’ll pitch Wednesday night in front of a full-throated Southern California home crowd. 

That second start made Urias feel “more comfortable” against the Cubs, per David Vassegh of AM 570 L.A. Sports. 

But it’s not predictive. The Cubs ranked second only to the mile-high Colorado Rockies among NL clubs in runs and OPS in the regular season. Urias could get whacked on Wednesday, like anyone else.

The burgeoning hurler appears poised for success, though. He’s a different animal from the fresh call-up who took the mound back in June.

Urias is rested, having thrown just two innings since Sept. 29. Those two frames just happened to come in a winner-take-all NLDS Game 5 against the Washington Nationals. He had ice water in his veins during the outing, becoming the youngest MLB pitcher to ever win a postseason game.

And while this is a game the Dodgers would like to win, it’s not one they need to win, so the expectations are marginally less weighty.

Not that Urias can’t take it. The southpaw is still about a year shy of the legal U.S. drinking age, but Roberts called him “calm and cool,” per Pedro Moura of the Los Angeles Times. 

“Some of it plays to the youthfulness, the naivete, and just not really understanding the gravity of this moment, which is great,” Roberts said, per Moura.

For his part, Urias acknowledged the stakes. 

“It’s something you have to deal with,” he said, per Paul Skrbina of the Chicago Tribune. “I felt the adrenaline when I was on the bench, so I’m thinking it’s something I’m also going to feel [in Game 4].”

No Cubs hitter has anything approaching a deep history against Urias. But Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Jason Heyward have all homered against him. 

“It’ll be easier to establish what we want to do against him, just because we’ve all had at-bats against him,” Bryant said, per MLB.com’s Phil Rogers. “But it’s a different time of the year. I’m sure he’ll be throwing a little harder because it’s the postseason.”

There’s also the controversy over Urias‘ pickoff move, which The Beat’s Justin Russo captured: 

That’s a possible source of grumbling if you’re searching for one. Cubs manager Joe Maddon called it “balking 101,” per MLB.com’s Jenifer Langosch. So keep an eye on that.

Sideshows notwithstanding, however, Urias has a path to October glory if he can outshine veteran Chicago right-hander John Lackey, who was finishing up high school in Abilene, Texas, when Urias was born. He can pen a legend and scribble his name all over it.

“Under normal circumstances,” USA Today‘s Jorge L. Ortiz opined, “the Dodgers brass might have preferred to go with a more experienced starter.” But these aren’t normal circumstances. Injuries have beset L.A.’s starting corps. So here’s Urias, healthy and ready.

The Dodgers are in the driver’s seat. And a kid who’s barely tasted his 20s has his foot poised over the accelerator.

Buckle up.

All statistics current as of Tuesday and courtesy of MLB.com and Baseball-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

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Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez confirmed Sunday that he refused to stay at Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower with teammates during a May series against the Cubs.

“I didn’t stay there,” Gonzalez said, per JP Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group. “I had my reasons.”

The Dodgers had long used the Donald Trump-owned hotel as their headquarters during Chicago road trips. They did not stay at the Trump Tower during their recent National League Championship Series trip to Chicago because the location required a non-refundable deposit.

Gonzalez refused to elucidate on the reasoning behind his decision.

“We’re here to play baseball, not talk politics,” he said.

Gonzalez was born in San Diego but raised in Mexico. He has played for the Mexican national team in the World Baseball Classic and has worked to build the game in his family’s native country. As Hoornstra noted, Gonzalez has donated to multiple Mexican charities and helped rebuild a Tijuana youth facility where he honed his game as a child.

Trump, the Republican nominee for president, has made a series of disparaging remarks about Mexicans during his campaign. He has consistently proposed the construction of a wall on the Mexican-American border aimed at keeping illegal immigrants out of the country. Trump has also accused Mexican immigrants of bringing drugs to the U.S. and of rape, among other crimes.

A recent NBC News poll showed Trump trails Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 50 points among Latino voters.

Follow Tyler Conway (@jtylerconway) on Twitter.

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The Arizona Diamondbacks have appointed Mike Hazen as their new general manager and executive vice president, the team announced Sunday.

“We feel very strongly that we have found the ideal candidate to lead our baseball operations,” managing general partner Ken Kendrick said in a statement, via the Boston Herald. “Mike’s reputation throughout the game is impeccable, and his championship experience gives us great confidence in naming him to this position.”

And Hazen noted: “I’m extremely grateful for this incredible opportunity to help the [Diamondbacks] reach the next level.”

The 40-year-old had been with the Boston Red Sox since the 2006 season. He served as a director of player development and amateur scouting before becoming the assistant general manager under Ben Cherington. He was then named the team’s senior vice president and general manager under Dave Dombrowski in Sept. 2015.

Jon Heyman of Today’s Knuckleball had more on the hire:

Buster Olney of ESPN added:

Turning around the Diamondbacks won’t be easy, as the team hasn’t had a winning season since 2011 and went 69-93 this past season. 

One of Hazen’s first major decisions will be appointing a manager. Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe speculated on one potential hire:

Torey Lovullo was Boston’s bench coach this past season. If Hazen doesn’t pursue Lovullo—or if Lovullo isn’t interested in the position—Bob Nightengale of USA Today floated the name of another potential manager:

It will be the first of many big decisions to come for Hazen as he looks to turn the Diamondbacks into a contender in the highly competitive National League West.

You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.

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