Los Angeles Dodgers starter Brett Anderson out 3-5 months with back injury

Brett Anderson, lefty starting pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, will miss 3-5 months after undergoing back surgery today for a bulging disk, per Dodgers beat guys on Twitter.

That's a significant blow for both Anderson, who made 31 starts last year for the Dodgers (the first time he's made more than 19 starts in the majors since 2009), and for the Dodgers, who are already short on rotation depth at the start of the season.  After Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers currently have Scott Kazmir as their #2 starter, and then Kenta Maeda, whose medicals gave several teams concerns.  After them, based on the Dodgers' depth chart on MLB.com, it is Alex Wood and then a bunch of question marks.

Los Angeles could opt to push phenom Julio Urias, their 19 year old lefty who finished 2015 in AAA after spending most of the season in the Texas League, or Jose De Leon, the 23 year old from Puerto Rico who finished 2015 in AA.  Still, until Hyun-Jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy return -- and both pitchers are slated to start the year on the disabled list -- the Dodgers' rotation could be problematic.

Anderson, 28, opted to accept the qualifying offer from the Dodgers at the start of the 2015-16 offseason, and thus is slated to make $15.8M this year.