Carl Crawford is sore but uninjured after hitting wall

Carl Crawford could tell you about walls, particularly if you happen to run into one.

“That wall don’t give,� Crawford said.

Crawford was speaking from refreshed memory, having run into the left-field wall in foul territory on Thursday night at Angel Stadium while making a terrific, sliding catch of an Alberto Callaspo fly ball in the second inning.

After making the catch, he crashed into the wall pretty hard. He got up, bent over, shook his right arm and then remained in the game, playing all nine innings.

“I feel like I ran into a truck or something,� Crawford said afterward.

Manager Don Mattingly said his left fielder’s back was sore, but Crawford wasn’t about to limit his aches to one body part.

“Pretty much my whole body,� he said. “I mean, something like that it’s not just one spot. You run into a wall, so you’re pretty much going to have aches and pains all over.�

Crawford, who is hitting .311 and leads the team with 12 runs scored, did his part to start the Dodgers off right Thursday. He led off the game with a triple and scored on an Adrian Gonzalez sacrifice fly.

“It’s always good to strike quick,� he said. “I thought we had some momentum going, we just kind of didn’t keep it going, so it was frustrating at the end.�

The end featured a 3-2 victory by the Angels. But the way things have been going for the Dodgers of late, Crawford emerging from his meeting with the left-field wall without apparent injury was something of a victory in itself.