Dodgers place Rivera on DL, recall Van Slyke

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Dodgers Wednesday placed outfielder/first baseman Juan Rivera on the 15-day disabled list with a strained left hamstring and recalled outfielder/first baseman Scott Van Slyke from Triple-A Albuquerque. Rivera was batting .247 with two home runs and 13 RBI in 25 games.
 
Van Slyke will be making his Major League debut and was batting .336 with nine doubles, one triple, eight home runs and 25 RBI in 32 games with the Isotopes. The 25-year-old ranked among the Pacific Coast League leaders in hits (41, T-8th), total bases (76, 2nd), home runs (T-2nd), RBI (T-7th) and slugging percentage (.623, T-4th) and hit .364 with runners in scoring position (12-for-33). In the field, the Missouri native has appeared in 26 games in the outfield and eight at first base.

Last season with Double-A Chattanooga, he was selected as the Dodgers’ Branch Rickey Minor League Player of the Year and as a Southern League All-Star, winning the league’s batting title with a .348 average to go with 45 doubles, 20 home runs and 92 RBI in 130 games.

Van Slyke, the son of former Major League outfielder Andy Van Slyke, batted .357 with a home run and two RBI in 10 Spring Training games with the Dodgers and was originally selected in the 14th round of the 2005 First-Year Player Draft.
 
The Los Angeles Dodgers, pioneers in sport and world culture, have won more games than any other club in the National League since moving to Los Angeles in 1958.  Since the start of the modern era in baseball, the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles, combined, have won six World Series titles and 21 National League pennants with a cumulative attendance of more than 190 million, the highest total in the history of baseball or any other sport.