DENVER -- After growing up in Norwalk and attending what he says were three or four Los Angeles Dodgers games a year, newly acquired catcher Rod Barajas -- who came to the club on a waiver claim from the New York Mets on Aug. 22 and joined the Dodgers two days later in Milwaukee -- will make his Dodger Stadium debut Monday night.
"To wear those all-white uniforms with Dodgers across the chest, that is going to be great," Barajas said. "The road uniforms are great, but the home one is the one I remember growing up. That is the uniform I always wanted to put on."
Barajas said he didn't even know how many tickets he would be leaving for the game because he hadn't responded to any of the messages he had received.
"I'm trying to hold off as long as I can, because I know I'm going to be bombarded," he said. "There are a lot of text messages that are going unanswered."
Barajas said his extended family members, all of whom live in Southern California, are such diehard Dodgers fans that, when he played in L.A. during his 12 seasons in the majors, his family would root for him to do well but would root against whatever team he was playing on.
In other words, they wanted him to go 4 for 4, but his team to lose.
"That would be a party after the game right there, " he said. "Everybody would be excited, and I understood that. Hopefully, tomorrow will be the same thing."
Monasterios set for Tuesday
Dodgers manager Joe Torre said rookie Carlos Monasterios, who has a 2.08 ERA in his two starts since replacing Vicente Padilla in the starting rotation but hasn't made it through five innings in either of them, will again be the Dodgers' starting pitcher on Tuesday night against the Phillies.
"We have nobody else," Torre said. "Somebody screwed up this calendar so September didn't start until Wednesday."
Active rosters can expand by up to 15 players -- although teams almost never add that many -- on Sept. 1. Padilla is eligible to return from the disabled list on Tuesday, and while he isn't expected to come back that soon, he could be back in time to pitch the next time that spot in the rotation comes up, probably Sept. 6 at San Diego.
Tony Jackson covers the Dodgers for ESPNLosAngeles.com. Follow him on Twitter.