Baseball notebook: Ramirez fires back at team

Florida Marlins shortstop Hanley Ramirez defended his play and took shots at his manager and teammates, a day after he was pulled from a game for not hustling.

Ramirez, a two-time All-Star and last year’s N.L. batting champion, wasn’t in manager Fredi Gonzalez’s starting lineup against Arizona. On Monday night, he accidentally kicked a ball and then lightly jogged after it, allowing two runs to score.

“It’s his team. He can do whatever,” Ramirez said, mixing in an expletive. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“That’s OK. He doesn’t understand that. He never played in the big leagues,” he said.

Responded Gonzalez: “He’s right, but I know how to play the game.”

“I played six years in the minor leagues and I know what it takes to play this game and I know the effort it takes to play this game,” he said.

It seemed unlikely Ramirez would say he was sorry.

“We got a lot of people dogging it after ground balls,” he said. “They don’t apologize.”

Ethier placed on DL

The Los Angeles Dodgers put star right fielder Andre Ethier on the 15-day disabled list because of a broken right pinkie.

The Dodgers made the move before their game against Houston, which happened to be Andre Ethier Bobblehead Night.

Ethier is leading the majors with a .392 batting average and is tops with 38 RBIs. He’s also tied for the N.L. lead with 11 homers.

Zambrano will start

Having failed to fix the team’s eighth-inning relief woes or to improve his own performance during his three weeks in the bullpen, Carlos Zambrano is returning to the rotation.

“We took a chance that we needed to take,” manager Lou Piniella said. “We thought his velocity would increase. It hasn’t. We’re going to stretch him out to get him back in the rotation, and we’ll see when he’s ready.”

Piniella said he’d like Zambrano to pitch a few times in long relief first.

Lowell frustrated

Mike Lowell saw that his name was not in the Boston Red Sox starting lineup – and he didn’t appear surprised.

Lowell expressed frustration at his role with the Red Sox before they faced the New York Yankees.

“It’s a little unfortunate but I think somewhat it’s painfully evident when you don’t have a role on the team,” Lowell said.