Steve Dilbeck wonders why Joe Torre named Vicente Padilla the Dodgers opening day starter:

“Am I saying [Padilla’s] better than the other guys? I’m not saying that,” Torre said. “We decided to line them up that way. But the fact [is] that we don’t have a No. 1, we have four guys who have pitched important games for us. We just had to line them up some way, and we just decided to do it this way.”

Apparently Torre would like to think he has four No. 2 pitchers. Time will tell on that one. What everyone agrees on is, he doesn’t have a proven No. 1. And he did have to pick someone.

I would have gone with Billingsley or Kershaw, since they are products of the Dodgers system. Why not show off the results of good drafting and good development?