*--Revised to include Joe Torre comments

LOS ANGELES - Joe Torre's decision to tailor his bullpen to reflect Philadelphia's left-handed hitters will leave Jeff Weaver on the outside looking in for the National League Championship Series.
Lefthander Scott Elbert (2-0, 5.03 ERA in 19 2-3 innings during the regular season) will replace Weaver (1-0 this postseason; 6-4, 3.65 in 79 regular-season innings) for the NLCS. It's one of two roster changes for the series; in the other, Hiroki Kuroda returns after missing the first round with a bulging disk in his neck, bumping Jon Garland.
"We just thought, even though we have two lefthanders in the bullpen, they're not necessarily matchup guys," said Torre. "Even though we have the two, we felt we wanted the option of having another for somewhere in the game, if we have that situation arises where we aren't going to use the other two guys."
Weaver was reported to be suffering from flu-like symptoms on Wednesday, but Torre said that did not figure into the decision.
"I let him know yesterday, and had to call him at home," Torre said. "I can tell you he was sad, but I'm not sure if he was sad or just felt bad. ...
"It's tough, because you spend the season with 12 to 13 pitchers, and now you're using four starters, so somebody's going to have to come off, even pitchers that help you. The righthanders the Cardinals had in the first round made him necessary in my mind, and he helped us win Game 1. ... I felt we needed the lefthanded option, even though we hopefully don't use him, because that means our starters are doing well.
"He seemed to understand, even though he would much rather be on (the roster)."

More from Tuesday's workouts for the Dodgers and Angels:
Playing his Cards: Dodger pitcher Jeff Weaver is in the playoffs for the fifth time, the last time being 2006 when he was with St. Louis, and won the fifth and final game of the World Series.
"Obviously, I have a lot of fond memories of playing there and everything," said Weaver, " but it's a new task going up against them and trying to take them out. Regardless of the team you're on, you're still trying to go out there to win, and despite who you're playing, you're trying to do the same.
"It's kind of funny -- there's only a couple of guys still over there that I played with. It's a whole new team, we're on different teams, and go out there and try to do our job."
That win in Game 5 of the 2006 World Series, he said, is definitely helpful as he returns to the postseason.
"Even the previous experience when I was with the Yankees (in 2002 and 2003) ... obviously the results went the other way, but even those experiences helped me for getting back there with the Dodgers the first time, and a little bit more experience then, and you take it into the next postseason.
"I think that's all you can really do. You're pretty fortunate just to get the opportunity, and you've got to learn from each experience. And hopefully if you get back there again it will help you. I think there's no doubt the experience of being in the postseason obviously helps for in the future."
A house divided: With both Weaver brothers in the playoffs -- the first time that's happened -- Jeff said his parents had decided to take sides: his father, Dave, will follow Jeff and the Dodgers, while his mother, Gail, will follow Jered and the Angels. "I think she wants to go to Boston," Jeff said. "She's never been there."
Finding himself: Chad Billingsley was 9-4 in the first half of the season, earning a spot in the All-Star Game. He was 3-7 in the second half, trying mightily to regain that early form.
"I mean, it's a lot easier said than done," Billingsley said. "The last couple of outings I had to finish up the regular season felt a lot more like my first-half stuff."
Looking back, he has an idea when and how his problems started.
"It was about the all-star break," he said. " I was having a hard time throwing to the left-hand side of the plate, away to a right-handed hitter. And I kind of started forcing my mechanics to go that way, and just doing one little thing that led to some other things. You fly open, you start drifting off, drifting other ways. I moved over to the left side of the rubber to allow myself to be more consistent to that side of the plate, and it just lead to other things. Just trying to do too much."
His last two starts -- a six-inning no-decision at Washington in which he gave up three runs, and a loss at San Diego in which he gave up two runs in six innings -- offered some hope, he said: "I mean, it felt great. I'm not quite there, but it was a step in the right direction."
Manager Joe Torre said Tuesday that Billingsley would be his Game 4 starter. Vicente Padilla will start Game 3 in St. Louis, following Randy Wolf and Clayton Kershaw.
Updates: Angels manager Mike Scioscia said Howie Kendrick would get the start at second base in Game 1 of the series with Boston. "Maicer Izturis is good to go," he said. "He'll get a lot of action in this series, most likely play on Friday. But Howie will play on Thursday."
Reliever Jason Bulger, who left Saturday's game with shoulder stiffness, played catch at Tuesday's workout and "feels much better," Scioscia said. "He'll throw a light bullpen tomorrow. We'll be able to evaluate to see if he's available for Thursday."
In and out: Torre said Ronnie Belliard, rather than Orlando Hudson, would start at second base on Wednesday.
"He doesn't have as wide a range as Hudson does," said Torre. "But I think offensively he's maybe a little fresher right now. We asked O-Dog to do a lot of stuff early in the year. And he played his tail off and continues to do that. But it was just a decision I decide to make, and we'll go day to day right now."

It came in the eighth inning, and might have been the Dodger Stadium press-box announcement of the year: "That is the manager, Brad Ausmus, pinch-running for Jim Thome."
In keeping with a Joe Torre tradition of handing the final-game reins to a veteran player, Ausmus was the acting manager for the Dodgers' 5-3 win over Colorado to wrap up the regular season.
As far as Torre could remember before the game, none of his other player-managers had inserted themselves in the game. "They're having too much fun sitting there and playing with it," he said.
But, with other veterans taking other coaching roles, that eighth-inning substitution meant the manager ran for one of his two hitting coaches.
Ausmus, the backup catcher, did not try to claim he'd simply picked his fastest available runner for the job.
"Second least-fastest guy on the team, next to Thome, I think," he said. "Maybe Loretta. I might be third. But somebody had to pinch-run so I figured I'd get myself out of the way."
Overall, Ausmus said it was an enjoyable experience.
"To me, it was actually a little more difficult because we have 30-some players here, and a handful of them out in the field who you want to let come off the field to get ovations from the fans." (As an example, he let Casey Blake take the field in the fourth before sending out Blake DeWitt as a substitute.)
"So you're trying to mix and match and get people off the field and get people on the field, and not run out of players, and be able to pinch-hit for the pitcher. So it was a little bit more of a chess match, I think, than it would be with a 25-man roster in a regular game."
Beforehand, Ausmus had jokingly made it clear he understood how the manager's role would work, or at least how he hoped the post-game press meeting would go: "I do everything right, put all the guys in a position to succeed and we win 10-0. Then I can take the credit. If we lose, it's the players' fault."
Afterward, Andre Ethier, equally tongue in cheek, offered an opposing view.
"He was horse(bleep)," Ethier said. "The players won that game. If we'd lost, it would have been the manager's fault."
The more realistic view, given the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world of baseball, was claimed by Matt Kemp.
"He's 1-0, so he's good so far," said Kemp.
Coach Weaver: Jeff Weaver was also part of the Ausmus coaching staff, taking the role of bullpen coach for the day.
"Last night, he brought me in. Short-term contract," Weaver said, laughing.
"It was good. I think everybody had fun with it, but still took it seriously -- get an idea what it's all about, and have fun with it. And fortunately, it worked out pretty good."
And what did he do in his bullpen coaching debut?
"Just answered the phone," he said. "Made sure guys got up and ready, and let them know who they're going to be facing, and something they might do against them."
Sunday's relaxed atmosphere was clearly a welcome change from the stressful final week that saw the Dodgers lose five straight before finally clinching the NL West.
"We did that intentionally," Weaver joked. "It's nice to get it out of the way and come out and enjoy the last day, and then get back to work."

With Howie Kendrick out, Sean Rodriguez is in.
Trying to shake up a team that was at .500 when it opened its interleague series with the Padres, the Angels sent down Kendrick on Friday and on Saturday welcomed back Rodriguez, the infielder who was leading the Pacific Coast League with 21 homers and 60 RBIs while batting .277.
"Sean will get a little bit of time at second base, sharing some time with Izzy," said manager Mike Scioscia (a Westlake Village resident, as you darned well ought to know by now), referring to Maicer Izturis. "If Izzy can keep being the presence we know he can, we'll try to keep him in there. He's going to need some time off, and I think Sean can complement him there. He's also giving us coverage at short and in the outfield."
Rodriguez, a 24-year-old from Miami, had five stints totaling 59 games with the Angels last season, batting .204 with three homers and 10 RBIs while striking out 55 times in 167 at-bats.
"Last year definitely helps a lot," Rodriguez said of the transition from triple-A to the majors. The key to carrying over this year's success in Salt Lake City? "Don't change anything."
Rodriguez won't be playing every day with the Angels as he was in Salt Lake, but believes the way to deal with that is to "keep working. That's the one thing you can always do. True character when you're not playing every day, and you see how you go about your business."
Scioscia indicated one reason the Angels tabbed Rodriguez over third baseman Brandon Wood (.299, 14 homers, 43 RBIs in 44 games) is that the team didn't want to mess with the success of Chone Figgins, seventh in the AL with a .322 batting average while starting at third.
"I think Chone is very comfortable at third right now," Scioscia said. "If Izzy can give us the offense like he did (Friday) night -- although he doesn't have to go 4 for 4 every night -- the potential's for him to contribute offensively, and I think our defensive alignment will be very strong as it is right now."
See Howie does: Scioscia stressed that the roster change was primarily to get Kendrick -- batting just .231 with four homers and 22 RBIs in 51 games -- "back on track.
"And if Howie starts to attack the ball like he can, he's going to be an attractive option for us to come up and get back in our lineup. ... This is really twofold. It's as much trying to get Howie on track as it is to insert a player that can maybe bring a little more onto the field than Howie was right now."
Other than rehab assignments the last two seasons, it's the first time Kendrick has been on a minor-league roster since 2006, when he batted .369 in 69 games at Salt Lake. He batted .285 in Anaheim that year, .322 in 2007 and .306 last year. But Scioscia tried to paint the demotion as nothing out of the ordinary.
"This isn't odd at all," he said. "There have been scores of players who have come up to the big leagues, had some touches of success, but when you're trying to make that footprint, sometimes it takes more than the first go-round.
"We all anticipate Howie getting his stroke, coming back up here and being the player that we envisioned. But right now, we had to take a little detour than just grinding it out here, which wasn't moving him far enough along at the pace that we feel he can."
Pitching notes: Kelvim Escobar's balky shoulder "feels much better," Scioscia said, and Escobar could begin throwing today or tomorrow. It's still possible he could end up on the disabled list, but Scioscia said the team wants to "him throw first and see where he is, and if he's not far enough along, the DL would only take him to next weekend. But if he's available, we would love to see him in the bullpen some point earlier."
Scioscia was also not yet ready to discuss his pitching-rotation plans for this week, in light of the Angels off-day Thursday. "I kinda have an idea," he said, " but I'm not going to say right now. We're still digesting it."
This is of potential interest to Ventura County fans because of the outside possibility of an intriguing pitching matchup.
If the Angels don't use the opportunity to skip a spot in the rotation, Jered Weaver -- Sunday's starter -- would have his next start on Saturday the 20th against the Dodgers. That's also the next time the Dodgers will need a fifth starter, and with Eric Milton on the disabled list, one of the candidates for that start would appear to be Jeff Weaver. The brothers from Simi Valley have yet to face each other.
Scheduling: If you're planning to attend that Saturday Dodgers-Angels game, please note: Listed as a 1:10 p.m. start for a Fox network telecast, it is now a 6:05 p.m. start and will broadcast locally. The Sunday game in that series will start at 5 p.m. and be telecast by ESPN.