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ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Los Angeles Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw was placed on the 15-day disabled list Saturday for the first time in his seven-year career because of a swollen muscle in his left upper back. The 26-year-old left-hander, coming off his second Cy Young Award in three years, already had been scratched from his scheduled start in San Diego on Sunday after an MRI revealed the problem. Kershaw was on a throwing progression program and was tossing the ball at different distances Saturday before the teams Freeway Series finale against the Angels when he experienced some discomfort on his 27th throw. "He felt it, and that was the last straw," manager Don Mattingly said. "So at that point, we knew we couldnt have gone any farther and that it was a DL situation. Its a situation -- not just for me, but for everyone -- that weve got to save Clayton from Clayton at this point and be cautious. We cant allow him to try to keep pushing and go forward. If it was up to him, Im sure hed want to go farther. But we cant allow him to do that right now." Kershaw, who signed a $215 million, seven-year contract on Jan. 15, won the Dodgers season opener 3-1 against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Australia last weekend. The three-time All-Star was hoping to get back in the rotation for Fridays home opener against San Francisco, but instead it will be Hyun-Jin Ryu, who also will get the assignment Sunday at San Diego against Andrew Cashner. Ryu started and won the second game of the Australia trip, but tore a toenail while running the bases that day and wasnt sure hed be able to fill in for Kershaw until after his side session Friday. "I think that once Clayton felt something, he knew that he wasnt going to make his start on Friday," Mattingly said. "With his throwing progression, the fact that he stopped right away is all weve asked of him from the beginning: If you feel it at all, youve got to stop. And he stopped right away." Kershaw has made 33 starts, struck out at least 229 batters and logged 227 2/3 innings or more in each of the last three seasons -- including a career-high 236 innings last year, when he finished 16-9 with an NL-best 232 strikeouts and a 1.83 ERA. Kershaw led the majors in ERA for the third straight year, becoming the first pitcher to accomplish that feat since newly elected Hall of Famer Greg Maddux did it from 1993-95. Now that Kershaws run at a fourth straight ERA title has been adjourned for the time being, Mattingly wasnt making any predictions on when he will return to the rotation. The Dodgers have five off days scheduled between now and April 15. "This is not something that we say, OK, we think hell be ready by this date -- and if he doesnt get there, then its like, Oh, Claytons had a setback," Mattingly said. "We should just let it do what its supposed to do and let the medical staff do their work let them tell us what he could do. "And because of all the days off we have and the schedule we have, its really not worth pushing him." John Lynch Jersey . The team announced that it exercised the options on 15 players including goalkeepers Evan Bush, Maxime Crepeau and Troy Perkins, defenders Matteo Ferrari, Karl W. Warren Sapp Youth Jersey . The second-ranked Jayhawks will play the Miners of Texas-El Paso at Imperial Arena in the Bahamas. The game can be seen live on TSN2 starting at 7pm et/4pm pt. http://www.authenticbuccaneerspro.com/Ja...caneers-jersey/. "Canada," Bolland said with a smile. "Is that a question?" One day earlier, though, fellow Toronto Maple Leafs centre Nazem Kadri wasnt so sure his home and native land could pull off the win against the United States in the semi-finals of the Olympic hockey tournament. Matt Gay Womens Jersey . While hell be dialed in to that tournament on a course he loves, you can forgive him if his eyes glance down the calendar just a bit, towards April. O. J. Howard Jersey . Vettel only needs to finish fifth or better Sunday to wrap up the championship with three races remaining, and bettered his own lap record to claim his third straight pole at Buddh International Circuit.Last week in the CFL the penalty flags were flying. In total between the four games played there were 110 penalties for 958 yards, which is the third-highest total in the last 20 years. Obviously, that is way too many penalties. It disrupts the flow of the game, extends the length of the game, and is flat out hard to watch. However, it is one thing to simply complain about the flag-filled week. Its another to examine the calls, look at the reasons why they were made, and work towards finding solutions so it doesnt happen again. In conjunction with the leagues head coaches, that is exactly what Glen Johnson, the leagues Vice-President of Officiating, is currently working on. It is a process that will take some time for a couple reasons, the most important being that we are all learning a new culture in football where player safety is the focus. However, all the league stake holders are all in to work towards limiting the amount of penalties called, and the time it takes to call them. Johnson has accumulated the numbers from last week and some from the first three weeks of the season, and they may surprise football fans. First, all of the penalties from last week have been reviewed and, of the 110 called, 93 of them were the correct call while only seven of them were debatable or questionable calls. Essentially, 94 per cent of the calls made last week were correct which according to Johnson is, "very close to the overall standards from the last few years." These numbers are significant, because it is important to understand that fixing the problem of too many penalties does not just fall on the shoulders of the officials. The players and coaches are ultimately responsible, and are working with Johnson on a weekly basis to improve the situation. Johnson explained by pointing out that there are currently teams that have asked the league to make officials available for practices. "I talk to the coaches and we are working together to improve the situation on a weekly basis, in fact some teams have asked that we supply them refs at practice, which I think is an excellent idea, and can help the teams and our officials." After three weeks this season penalties are up by 31 per cent overall, which is a huge jump. However, when you dig a little deeper into the numbers, we shouldnt be surprised. Of the 31 per cent increase this year, "player safety fouls," are leading the way. Penalties like unnecessary roughness, roughing the passer, face masking, and sportsmanship-related fouls like taunting are driving the increase. When you consider what is happening in North America when it comes to player safety in contact sports, we shouldnt be surprised that calls that are designed to protect the players, sometimes from themselves, are up dramatically. It is going to take time for players to understand what is a legal hit, and what is not, when they have trained their whole lives to hit a certain way, especially when we are talking about the hits on the quarterbacks. So before we start chanting, "ref you suck," from the stands, remember that the Players Association have negotiated player safety items into their new collective bargaining agreements and have made it a priority. It is the players who must change their behaviour, and better understand what is - and isnt - a legal hit, and play with more discipline. They voted it into their own agreements. For now, if the officials err, they will err on the side of protecting the players because that has been mandated by the league and the CFLPA. Penalty--filled games make for long football games, and fans should know that the league is very aware of games extending too long and are working on improving that area as well.dddddddddddd One concern is with regards to video review, and whether or not it is taking too long. No, this has nothing to do with the new rule to make pass interference a reviewable penalty - more on that in a minute. This is about being more efficient with the review process. Glen Johnson is even looking at possibly changing the mechanics to speed things up. "One thing that I am looking at is to possibly drop the part of the process where the official explains to the Referee what he saw which then gets relayed to the replay official." He went on to say, "that information is rarely helpful as the play is getting reviewed, we could save about 20 seconds per review." Twenty seconds would be significant when you consider that currently the average review is taking two minutes and 15 seconds. This however, according to Johnson, is skewed because of a few really long reviews this year that took five minutes. He said that reviews generally take about one minute and 30 seconds, which is close to the target. "The objective is to get them under two minutes and five minutes is not acceptable!" It should also be noted that according to data from south of the border, NFL reviews on average take about three minutes, so shaving over a minute off that time will add up quickly. Johnson has reminded his refs that when replay was first introduced to the game there was a 90-second limit placed on the referee, and that decision didnt come from a replay office - it was made from under the hood at the park. Now on the new rule involving the review of pass interference. After three weeks there have been five challenges of pass interference, and all five were on plays where there was no flag thrown. In other words coaches challenged that the call was missed. On two of those challenges the play was reviewed and it was determined by the command center that there was PI on the play and the no call on the field was overturned. It is a small sample size but Johnson, and the majority of the coaches in the league, feel the new rule change is, "going well," so far. As for the timing of this particular challenge on average it takes about 20 seconds longer than other challengeable plays. So if it takes about one minute and 30 seconds for most challenges, then a PI call would take one minute and 50 seconds which is still under the target of two minutes. By the way both overturned PI challenges occurred in the end zone which is the area on the field that changes the outcome of games, and the calls ended up being correct. The purpose of this change was not to make PI more difficult, but to assist the officials who may have missed something blatant during live action, and in that regard the league and the coaches believe it is working so far. When you break it all down, there is a fairly simple explanation as to why player safety type penalties are up, and that should correct itself over time. It is also important to understand that 94 per cent of the penalties called in the game are the correct call, so it is the coaches and players responsibility to make the necessary corrections. And finally, all the stakeholders in the game are very aware that last week there were way too many penalties and are working together to make changes to make sure 110 flags in four games doesnt happen again. Now lets get back to talking about football. ' ' '