Salary Drives Earn Green a Share of the Spotlight

Look, when you get down to it, this is what that six-year, $84-million contract is all about.

When you get down to it, this is why the Dodgers paid him $16 million this year and will pay him another $16 million in 2005, the final year of the contract he signed after being traded from the Toronto Blue Jays.

If there have been questions at times as to whether Shawn Green is really cut out for the leading man role, and if the Dodgers haven’t always provided him with a supporting cast strong enough to reach the October stage, he was clearly a money player with the season on the line in Game 3 of the division series with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Borrowing Jose Lima’s spotlight, Green had his own time of it.

He slugged a pair of solo home runs off Matt Morris in a 4-0 victory, helping the Dodgers stay alive and putting his name in the club’s postseason record book, which had been growing dusty from lack of use.

After all, this was the Dodgers’ first postseason win since 1988, coming with St. Louis leading, 2-0, in the best-of-five series, and for Green there was the personal motivation of a long wait.

He had appeared in more games without reaching the postseason than any current major league position player.

“After five years in Toronto and five here, I didn’t want this to end too soon,” he said. “I want to keep it going as long as I can. You never know when you’re going to get another chance.”

Green, of course, is not alone in the venture, but those two home runs Saturday night and the three in back-to-back games are a promising signpost.

“The two balls he hit tonight,” batting coach Tim Wallach said, “came on the kind of swings that tell me he could be hot for a long time.

“Where he hits ‘em and how he hits ‘em tell me he’s on it.”

After Steve Finley delivered a two-run, broken-bat double with the bases loaded in the third inning, Green -- who had also singled in the second -- drove a 2-and-0 fastball over the fence in right center as he led off the fourth, then connected again on a two-out, first-pitch fastball in the sixth, ripping it on a line into the right-field pavilion.

The two shots traveled 802 feet, energizing a crowd of 55,992 that Green said was the most exciting he has ever played in front of and which didn’t need much more energizing as it fed off the adrenaline-pumping Lima.

For Green, the two home runs made him the first Dodger to hit two in a postseason game since Eric Karros in 1995 and the first to go deep in consecutive postseason games since Kirk Gibson in Games 4 and 5 of the 1988 National League championship series against the New York Mets.

In addition, the three in three games represent more than any Dodger has hit in their division series career -- which, of course, speaks to how infrequently the club has participated.

“The key tonight,” Green said, “was that each time I was ahead in the count. The last time Morris pitched against us he was throwing a lot of first-pitch strikes, getting ahead in the count and putting us on the defensive. It’s a lot different when you have an offensive mind-set.”

Although periodically criticized for what some believe has been his failure to carry the Dodgers despite a personality that better fits the shadows than forefront, Green has struggled to find that mind-set on a consistent basis since hitting 49 homers and driving in 125 runs in 2001 and adding 42 with 114 in 2002.

A shoulder injury restricted last year’s totals to 19 and 85, and he struggled through the first half of 2004 before restoring a measure of power. He finished with 28 homers, 86 RBIs and a career-low batting average of .266.

“I had a tough first half coming back from the shoulder surgery,” he said. “I expected it to take a little while just to get the feeling and confidence back, but I had a double and home run off Jason Schmidt in a game against the [San Francisco] Giants in midseason and that sort of got me back on track. The second half was much better.”

With his long, lean body, said Wallach, there are a lot of pieces to Green’s swing, compounding the expectations.

“There were periods this year when he was really good,” the batting coach said, “and periods he really struggled. Shawn would be the first to tell you that.

“I probably root for him more than I root for anybody else because I know how badly he cares, how hard he works, and how much he wants to be the guy that everybody looks to, which is what he was tonight.

“He gets frustrated, like all hitters do, but to his credit he never stops working at it. I’ve tried to tell him that he doesn’t have to be the guy who hits the ball out of the park because just the threat of it is so important to the rest of the lineup.”

That’s a reassuring message, but hitting the ball out of the park is much more of a restorative.

“I feel pretty good where I’m at right now and hope to keep it going,” Green said.

The Dodgers feel better too. They have a pulse again, or as Green said: “If we can tie up the series [tonight], it puts a lot of heat on St. Louis, even though we’d be going back there to play [Game 5].”

The highest-salaried Dodger helped his team cash in Saturday night. Are deposits possible on Sunday as well?

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Two long

Shawn Green hit two home runs against St. Louis on Saturday in the Dodgers’ 4-0 victory. It was the fifth time this season that Green (who had 28 homers during the regular season) had a multi-home run game:

*--* DATE OPP. ON BASE RES. May 6 at Florida 3-run, solo W, 9-4 Aug. 19 vs. Atlanta Solo, solo L, 6-5 Aug. 21 vs. Atlanta Slam, solo W, 7-4 Sept. 13 vs. San Diego Solo, solo L, 9-7 Oct. 9 vs. St. Louis Solo, solo W, 4-0

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