The shock of the baseball offseason came when the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a trade with the Atlanta Braves to bring Matt Kemp back to the organization that drafted him and where he spent his first nine Major League seasons.
The trade was made for salary purposes to help get the Dodgers below the luxury tax threshold by unloading the contracts of Brandon McCarthy, Scott Kazmir and Adrian Gonzalez.
Kemp wasn’t expected to remain with the Dodgers at first, but when they couldn’t find another deal for him throughout the offseason, he became their starting left fielder and had a comeback season en route to his third career All-Star appearance.
The Dodgers are now playing the Braves in the National League Division Series, where they hold a 2-0 lead going into Game 3 on Sunday night at SunTrust Park.
The series prompted Kemp to reflect on his time with the Braves, which was comprised of fond memories, but an NLDS victory remains at the forefront, via J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group:
“It was short, but I had a lot of fun,” Kemp said. “I played for the team that I grew up watching as a kid. So it’s pretty cool being in Atlanta. Now I get to play against them and I’m going to try to beat them.”
Kemp wasn’t in the starting lineup in the first two games of the series when the Braves started right-handed pitchers. But with lefty Sean Newcomb on the mound in Game 3, there is a good chance he sees his first action of the postseason.
The last stop on the Matt Kemp comeback tour would certainly be a big postseason hit against his former team to help the Dodgers return to the NL Championship Series for the third consecutive year.
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