Brock’s Injury More Serious Than He Thought

Greg Brock, who held a reservation all spring to play first base on Opening Day for the Dodgers, had to cancel Tuesday night because of a right elbow injured more seriously than originally believed.

Instead, his place taken by Sid Bream, Brock found himself with a plane ticket back to Los Angeles, where he is scheduled to be examined today by Dr. Frank Jobe.

Tuesday, Brock was examined by Dr. William Bryan, the Astros’ team physician, who diagnosed Brock’s injury as a sprained medial collateral ligament and recommended that he not throw for the next two weeks.

“This is one of the worst things that ever happened to me,” Brock said before the game. “I’m torn two ways. First, I feel like a needle has been shot into me, and second, I feel that if the problem had been diagnosed earlier, I could have sat two weeks in spring training instead of two weeks during the season.”

Brock, who hurt the elbow making an awkward throw to second in a game against the Astros on March 17 at Vero Beach, originally was said to have suffered a strained muscle in the elbow. After missing four games, he returned to action, and finished the spring with a .317 average and 11 RBIs, second on the team to Al Oliver.

Now, Brock has been idled at a time when Bream, a rival at first base, is the team’s hottest hitter.

“This is a prime situation for Sid, without a doubt,” Brock said. “He gets two weeks to show what he can do, and if he does outstanding stuff, he’s not going to come out of the lineup.

All during spring training, Brock said, he did not consider Bream a threat to his position, despite Bream’s .409 average and team-leading three home runs in exhibition play.

“It didn’t bother me,” Brock said. “My confidence was high, and I praised everything he did. I feel he’s got a lot of potential, he’s proved that, but that doesn’t downgrade my ability.

“They’ve got to make a decision, without a doubt. Both of us feel we can play. One of us will play here, the other somewhere else or another position.

“Sid told me all spring, ‘Go and have the year you can have, because then they’ll have to get rid of me.’ ”

So far, Brock has not been placed on the disabled list, which already is crowded with four Dodgers: pitchers Alejandro Pena and Bobby Castillo, infielder Bob Bailor, and outfielder R.J. Reynolds, who was placed on the 15-day list Tuesday with a left hamstring pull.

But it may just be a matter of time. The Dodgers must first decide whether they want Brock available to pinch-hit. “But I don’t want to pinch-hit if that means I won’t be ready sooner to play every day,” Brock said.

Reynolds, who has been playing with a hamstring pull for more than a week, aggravated it in last Saturday’s exhibition game against the Angels, but said that if he had been in Tuesday’s starting lineup, he probably would not have come out.

With Bill Russell and Steve Sax both hobbled Tuesday, the Dodgers needed a second baseman, so they put Reynolds on the DL and summoned Mariano Duncan from Albuquerque. The Dodgers had a healthy infielder in Bailor, who threw with ease Tuesday, but that only reinforced the notion that the Dodgers had placed Bailor on the 21-day DL with a sore shoulder just to make room on the roster for Bream.

Reynolds, asked if he were this week’s sacrificial lamb, said: “I won’t even touch that. I know better, and you know better by asking that.”

He added, however, that his reputation for being injury prone caused him to play last week with the hamstring when it might have been more prudent to rest.

“They (the Dodgers) told me I was fragile, that I had a low threshold of pain,” Reynolds said. “I was trying to prove differently.

” . . . This (going on the disabled list) may be safer, so I don’t rush back and tear it.”