A New Season, Same Results for Valenzuela

In their hour of need, the Dodgers were charitable to a fault Tuesday night.

If anything, Houston’s Nolan Ryan should have been the one forced to play with a handicap--like his right arm tied behind his back. Instead, the Dodgers played the Astros short-handed and brittle-fingered to lose their 1985 opener in depressingly familiar fashion, 2-1, before 44,069 in the Astrodome.

With Steve Sax and Bill Russell both injured and Bob Bailor healthy but unavailable because of a botched front-office play that won’t show up in the box score, the Dodgers gave up two unearned runs and committed three errors, the last by rookie Mariano Duncan, a last-second solution to the dilemma of who would play second base.

With Greg Brock also out with a sore elbow, Sid Bream started at first, giving the Dodgers two rookies in their Opening-Day lineup for the first time since 1970, when they used Bill Buckner (left field) and Steve Garvey (third base). Bream hit an opposite-field single in his first at-bat to drive in the Dodgers’ only run, but he also couldn’t come up with catcher Mike Scioscia’s one-hop throw on an attempted pickoff, a play that led to the Astros’ first run in the third.

“It was one of those things,” Bream said. “I didn’t get my glove down enough and consequently the ball went under my glove. If the ball had come up about two or three inches, he (runner Dickie Thon) would have been out.”

Duncan, who had never played an inning above the Double-A level, arrived just hours before the game from Albuquerque, N.M. “I’ll guarantee you he was scared to death,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “Wouldn’t you be? That’s a tough way to break in.”

Not that Ryan was about to give any of the Dodgers a break in outdueling Fernando Valenzuela, by now used to losing games such as these. In seven innings, he allowed the Dodgers just three hits, did not walk a batter and fielded flawlessly, going down on one knee to handle a direct hit from Morganna, the Kissing Bandit who’s liable to retire her act before Ryan, 38, retires his.

“I was surprised she was dressed as much as she was,” Ryan said of his first-inning visitor, who also advanced on an embarrassed Thon, whose comeback after a year’s absence would have been satisfying even without a kiss, since he singled and scored the Astros’ first run.

“I was a little disappointed,” Ryan added.

Ryan’s dashed hopes were no match for those of Valenzuela, for whom nonsupport has become a way of life. Last season, Valenzuela was involved in 13 games in which the Dodgers scored one run or less, and the Dodgers weren’t about to disrupt that pattern Tuesday.

“This game brought back some bad memories,” said Mike Marshall, who doubled and scored on Bream’s single in the second inning. “The worst thing is that it happened to Freddie.

“We never seem to play well behind him, and don’t score any runs. Every once in a while you’ll see his frustration, but he’s a professional. It’s been two years now without any support, but I haven’t seen him yet show up anybody, on the mound or in the clubhouse.”

Unlike Ryan, Valenzuela was eminently hitable: The Astros collected nine hits in Valenzuela’s seven innings of work.

“But even though they were hitting freely,” Valenzuela said through interpreter Jaime Jarrin, “I thought there were precise moments that I was at the top of my game.

“With one out they might get a hit, but then I’d get the second and third out.”

Except, of course, when his fielders betrayed him. In the third, Thon poked a breaking pitch up the middle, took second on Scioscia’s error, and scored on Phil Garner’s ground-ball hit up the middle.

In the fourth, Bill Doran was credited with a double when Ken Landreaux, who was shaded to left-center, failed to come up with Doran’s hanging liner, the ball bouncing past him. Then Ryan skidded a ball to Duncan’s left.

“I don’t know what happened, it was a routine ground ball,” said Duncan, a 21-year-old from Pedro Guerrero’s hometown in the Dominican Republic who at first refused to believe Al Campanis when the Dodger general manager called him Monday night to tell him to report to Houston. It took a second call, from Albuquerque Manager Terry Collins, before Duncan packed to go.

“Maybe I lost my concentration.”

Lasorda, forced by injuries to maneuver with just 22 players, briefly considered playing Guerrero at second.

“But then I thought, ‘If he gets hit at second, I’m heading for the Sahara Desert,”’ Lasorda said.

Asked if it were frustrating knowing that a healthy Bailor was sitting on the bench, Lasorda said: “He’s not healthy, he’s on the disabled list.”

Bailor said he was fine, someone said to Lasorda.

“Is he throwing the ball 100%? He didn’t say that to me,” Lasorda replied.

Bailor, asked again about his arm, said: “I don’t know what they want me to say, but I’m not going to lie, my arm feels good.

“But it’s over with. There’s nothing I can do about it, and neither can they.”

Or, as Lasorda said: “That’s the haphazards (sic) of the game, I guess.”

They may be a common sight in ’85.

Dodger notes

Bob Welch, who has a sprained ligament in his right elbow, said he will not pitch Friday’s home opener against the San Francisco Giants. “Rick (Honeycutt) is going to pitch,” Welch said, although the Dodgers have not yet officially announced the change. Welch said he is uncertain when he’ll be able to pitch, but is hoping to go Saturday against the Giants. . . . Dodger Vice President Al Campanis, on the number of injuries: “Well, we can’t have rain, fellas.” . . . Al Oliver had the Dodgers’ other hit Tuesday, a two-out single in the ninth off Frank DiPino, and also was front man in a fourth-inning relay that cut down Dickie Thon at the plate in the fourth. Oliver, who saw the Angels run on him mercilessly last Friday night, fielded Enos Cabell’s double off the wall and threw a strike to shortstop Dave Anderson, who threw out Thon at the plate. Anderson was guilty of a second-inning error and failed to score Scioscia, who had hit a leadoff double, from third with one out in the fifth. . . . Thon, as expected, got a standing ovation from the Astrodome crowd, which included Carl Lewis as the first-ball pitcher and Mickey Mantle as the celebrity swinger. “It’s been very tough for him,” Phil Garner said of Thon. “Dickie always had so much ability. It’s been easier for him than a lot of other guys. But what he did took a lot of courage. Not everybody can come back after they get hit in the face with a ball.” . . . Tom Niedenfuer pitched the eighth for the Dodgers, giving up one hit and striking out one.