-- SS Rafael Furcal went on the DL Monday with a strained lower back, retroactive to May 6. The Dodgers purchased the contract of IF Luis Maza from Class AAA Las Vegas. Maza, a minor-league journeyman hitting .402 in the Pacific Coast League, will be making his big-league debut.

--LHP Joe Beimel has now pitched 10 consecutive scoreless innings, but that number is somewhat deceiving. Beimel relieved Hiroki Kuroda in the seventh inning on Sunday and proceeded to walk the first two batters he faced, forcing in a run to cut a two-run lead to one. Beimel has not been charged with a run in 19 of his 20 appearances, but he has allowed five of 18 inherited runners to score.

--RHP Hiroki Kuroda, who flirted with a no-hitter on Sunday before finally giving up a single to Hunter Pence with two outs in the seventh inning, has been left with a no-decision in each of his past four starts. Kuroda has five no-decisions in eight starts for the season. He retired the Astros in order in the first inning and is now holding opposing batters to an .077 average (2-for-26) in the first inning, with five strikeouts.

--SS Chin-lung Hu has started each of the past five games while Rafael Furcal sat with lower back tightness. In those games, Hu is just 3-for-18 with a double, a walk and an RBI. One of the Dodgers' top prospects and the heir apparent to either Furcal or second baseman Jeff Kent next year, Hu clearly is suffering from sporadic playing time in the majors when he should be playing regularly in the minors.

--2B Jeff Kent is in the throes of a massive slump. Kent is hitless in his past 18 at-bats, and he has gone six consecutive games without a hit. He has just four hits in his past 30 at-bats, with three walks in that span, and his range at second base has diminished dramatically.

--RHP Chad Billingsley entered Sunday leading the majors in strikeouts per nine innings at 11.2, but he had just a 2-5 record and a 4.89 ERA to show for it. Billingsley has had a season-long tendency to run into trouble in one or two innings of each start, and that has been enough in many cases to ruin any chance of winning. He is the team's runaway leader with 23 walks and he is tied for first in the National League with four hit batsmen.

BY THE NUMBERS
16 -- seasons since the Houston Astros swept a series at Dodger Stadium, something they did over the weekend by holding the Dodgers to a combined six runs over the three games. Of those six runs, half of them scored in innings that started with the Dodgers trailing by at least five runs. The Astros shut out the Dodgers on Saturday night, their first shutout victory at Chavez Ravine since 1993.

QUOTE TO NOTE
"(My) young children were my motivation to continue on. I was at home playing with them, and it struck me: What else can I do? I have to support those kids." -- Dodgers reliever Yhency Brazoban, speaking through an interpreter, admitting over the weekend that he thought his career was over when he went down for the season with a torn labrum last summer, barely a week after he returned from Tommy John surgery.

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