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Manny Ramirez has MRI on strained calf muscle

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Now, don’t go getting too excited. OK, maybe a little.

This is, after all, Manny Ramirez. Anything Manny always seems noteworthy with the Dodgers.

Friday morning, Ramirez left the team hotel in Washington to have a precautionary MRI on his strained right calf muscle.

This is the same calf he strained in the season’s opening series at Pittsburgh, that continued to bother him enough last weekend that he did not start against the Giants, and pulled him out of Thursday’s game in Cincinnati after running down to first on a base hit.

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Ramirez, 37, is hitting .415 this season, fourth-best in the National League. He is batting cleanup in the Dodgers’ major-league best offense. Though the Dodgers survived losing him for 50 games last season because of his drug suspension, he’s not someone they can afford to lose for long now the way they are pitching.

The leg appeared strong in the first inning Thursday when he made a sprinting catch into the right-field corner to take a possible double away from Joey Votto.

Yet as soon as he reached first on his single in the sixth inning, he removed himself from the game. Manager Joe Torre previously said he did not expect Ramirez to play this weekend against the Nationals.

-- Steve Dilbeck

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