Kershaw demoted; Bartlett DL'd

Well, that was short-lived.

Clayton Kershaw, the can't-miss Los Angeles Dodgers southpaw drew the short straw today, getting demoted back to Double-A Jacksonville.

For those of you who heeded my advice and plucked him off the wire on the day of his May 25 debut, the ride is temporarily halted. Please exit to your left.

Say hello to the dreaded red letters: N/A.

One of the main culprit to the Kershaw squeeze was the emergence of Eric Stults, who has compiled a 2.21 ERA and a 0.98 WHIP in 20 1/3 IP.

And with Hiroki Kuroda and Brad Penny both coming off the DL and Chan Ho Park looking like the 18-game winner from 2000, Kershaw was deemed the odd-man out.

Kershaw was surprised, if not shocked by the news.

"Any way you want to spin it, I'm getting sent down," Kershaw said. "They can say they didn't have enough room, but they (brought) me up when they didn't have enough room. All those guys were healthy then."

But Kershaw couldn't seem to find the plate. His 24 walks in 38 2/3 innings kept getting him in trouble and despite giving up 2 or less ER in five of his eight starts, Kershaw struggled mightily with his pitch count and only reached six full innings once and that was his debut.

His 1.63 WHIP probably led to most folks giving up on the 20-year-old already. Surely, he was still owned in all NL-only and deeper mixed leagues.

I may have been one of his last owners in a 10-team format.


Bartlett on DL: A sneaky source of steals, Rays SS Jason Bartlett sprained his knee and hit the DL today, with Ben Zobrist, who homered against the Charlotte Knights Tuesday night, getting the call up.

Bartlett had ripped off 13 steals since May 25 and while his avg. (256), HR (0), RBI (20) and runs (24) have been below fantasy Mendoza lines, those type of steals don't grow on waiver wires.

Keep Bartlett on a DL spot, unless you have a legitimate guy already there. In cases where you can't DL him, let the waiver be your guide to replacing him or not.

Knee injuries can be dicey and linger and with speed as Bartlett's only redeeming quality, it may just be time to cut ties, unless your SS pile is just bone dry.