Dodgers notes: Julio Urías respect, Gavin Lux, dress-up day

After Saturday’s start, in which National League ERA leader Julio Urías pitched seven innings to beat San Diego, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts stumped for the left-hander, who did not make the All-Star team this season, to receive National League Cy Young Award consideration. Roberts, from Jack Harris at the Los Angeles Times, “His mentality is up there with some of the best that I’ve ever seen. ... To be quite honest, I think that Julio is using some of the lack of recognition as fuel. I think all players have some sense of what fuels them. And I believe this is part of his.”

Among the items in Fabian Ardaya’s notes column at The Athletic is that Gavin Lux took swings in the batting cage over the weekend, but isn’t expected to play until the San Francisco series at the earliest. Wednesday will mark Lux’s 12th straight game missed with neck soreness.

With the Dodgers lowering their magic number down to just two to win the National League West, they could potentially clinch the division as early as Tuesday. With the next setting at Chase Field in Phoenix, thoughts turn to 2013, when nearly the entire team ran to celebrate a division title in the right field pool. Clayton Kershaw reflected on the first of ten straight Dodgers playoff berths with Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register.

“Honestly, what I remember is that wasn’t even in our mindset,” Kershaw told Plunkett. “We didn’t have any intentions of doing that — until they said, ‘Do not jump in our pool.’ We were like, ‘No, you can’t tell us what to do.’”

Harris at the LA Times chronicled the Dodgers’ subdued celebration Sunday once the Dodgers clinched a playoff berth.

Sunday, on the Dodgers’ final extended road trip of the season, the Dodgers had their annual dress-up day. Some highlights shared online (the team Instagram post has several photos to scroll through):