Now that the Dodgers have lost two games in a row, let's take our mind off things with some Tuesday morning Dodgers links...

• "It's something that happens to everyone, not just me," Hiroki Kuroda told Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times, regarding the long season taking a physical toil. "No one who is still playing at this stage of the season is 100%. But you have to do as well as you can under those conditions."
• Jeff Passan at Yahoo! Sports took a gander at the various MVP candidates in both leagues, and had this to say of Matt Kemp: "The 26-year-old Kemp is the NL Bautista, putting up a monster season for a mediocre team. He plays center field (not all that well, but still), runs with aplomb and is a fearsome hitter."
• Adrian Beltre, just 32 years old, collected his 2,000th career hit on Sunday. Rob Neyer at Baseball Nation examined the Hall of Fame case of the former Dodger.
• Another former Dodger, Juan Pierre, had three hits Monday, and now has 1,997 career hits.
  
• Allegedly he handles the position well defensively, but his bat seems to need a bit of development, which might not happen as he's already 24," said Chad Moriyama of catcher Tim Federowicz: "Either way, it should be interesting to watch how he does in this short trial, but at this point, I have to question whether he can even outplay A.J. Ellis or not."
• Tim Kurkjian had a nice vignette of Stephen Strasburg's return on ESPN's Baseball Tonight. "Scouts say his velocity has returned, along with his calcifying curveball and his untouchable changeup," said Kurkjian. I couldn't find the video online, but here is some analysis of Strasburg by Steve Berthiaume and Bobby Velentine.