Giants Do Some Real Hitting and Beat Dodgers

Eight runs and 11 hits against four Dodger pitchers Sunday might suggest that the San Francisco Giants’ 8-4 victory in front of 48,995 fans amounted to little more than batting practice.

Actually, it was more like target practice. And anyone wearing blue while walking onto the Dodger Stadium turf was definitely stepping out at his own risk.

Dodger left fielder Al Oliver was the first to be hit. Jeff Leonard’s sinking line drive in the first inning caught Oliver in a vulnerable area--the hands--and exploded on him, popping loose for an error that allowed Brad Wellman to cruise home for the Giants’ first run.

Then, in the fifth and sixth innings, the Giants took direct aim at Dodgers’ starting pitcher Jerry Reuss. Reuss fended off the first strike, grabbing Dan Gladden’s liner off his shoetops, but was felled by the second. Another rocket by Leonard caught Reuss on the right elbow and then on his upper lip, a shot that did more long-term damage than immediate.

Reuss walked away shaken but unharmed. He remained in the game to pitch to two more hitters.

However, when those hitters both received bases on balls, loading the bases, Reuss was sent to the clubhouse and replaced by Tom Niedenfuer, who promptly turned a 1-1 game into a 6-1 Giant runaway.

And, finally, not to be forgotten, was the much-discussed, much-debated “phantom bruise” that the Dodgers’ Mariano Duncan received from a ball that everyone except first-base umpire Ed Montague swore never touched him.

Here was the situation:

Duncan had walked to lead off the bottom of the first and No. 2 hitter Ken Landreaux followed with a single to right. Ball and baserunner converged at the same spot for a moment before the hit skipped into the outfield and Duncan hustled into third.

Montague, however, waved Duncan out, ruling that the ball had grazed him while he was running toward second. Television replays seemed to indicate otherwise and everybody from Duncan to Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda to even Giant Manager Jim Davenport insisted there was no contact.

“Nothing happened,” said Duncan. “It didn’t hit me, it never touched me. Somebody told me it hit me in the helmet. I never felt it. If it hit me, it would’ve killed me.”

Lasorda: “Duncan said it never hit him. Montague said he heard it hit him. To me, he never broke stride. If that ball hits him, he’s gotta stop or something.

“So I asked the guy, ‘If it hit him, how the hell is he not going to know it--especially how hard that ball was hit?’ It’s impossible, isn’t it?”

From the vantage point of the San Francisco dugout, Davenport said “it didn’t look that close at all. I don’t know what it could’ve hit. His finger, his hand? I don’t think it came close to him.

“But it was an awful big play for us.”

That it was. Instead of having runners on first and third with no outs, the Dodgers had Landreaux on first with one out. Oliver followed with a bouncer up the middle that would have scored Duncan easily, but instead was converted into a routine force at second.

Pedro Guerrero then forced Oliver at second for the third out and that was that.

On this afternoon, the Dodgers were hurt by baseballs that hit them, by baseballs that apparently didn’t them . . . and by baseballs that were hit in precisely the wrong place of the ballpark.

Oliver was victimized by one of those in the fourth inning. Oliver was on third base with no outs when Mike Marshall blooped a shallow fly to left. Giants shortstop Jose Uribe sprinted out, left fielder Leonard sprinted in and the ball fell between them.

Oliver, holding at third to see if the ball would be caught, then took off for home. But with his late start, he never had a chance--with catcher Bob Brenly taking Leonard’s strong throw and awaiting Oliver’s arrival to make an easy tag.

The Dodgers also got another single by Mike Scioscia and an intentional walk to Sid Bream, but came away from the inning with just one run.

“When was the last time you saw a guy thrown out at home running from third on a single?” Lasorda said. “You look at a ball hit like that and 99 times out of 100, it’s going to roll. But that S.O.B. just stayed there. If it rolls, even a little bit, he (Oliver) is gonna score.

“But it didn’t do anything. He (Leonard) picked it up and fired home. You can’t criticize Oliver on that play. . . . You saw two plays today that you may never see again in the same game. Strange game.”

Do not, however, blame this Dodger defeat on bad karma. Some bad pitching also entered into it.

When Reuss left the game with the bases loaded, Niedenfuer came on to surrender a two-run double to Chris Brown, a two-run single to pinch-hitter Chili Davis and, one out later, an RBI single by Dan Gladden.

Then, two innings later, Carlos Diaz issued a walk to Johnnie LeMaster and a home run to Rob Deer, the Giants’ Kid All-Or-Nothing. Deer, a rookie from Orange, has five major league hits to his credit--four of them home runs, three of them coming against the Dodgers.

That’s how a 1-1 ballgame can turn into an 8-1 rout.

Niedenfuer said he had good stuff. “I just made terrible pitches,” he said. “I made the bad pitches and they hit them.”

Reuss said he wouldn’t have minded staying in the game. His confrontation with Leonard’s line drive looked worse than it actually was, Reuss said.

“I felt fine,” he said. “The batters I walked, I thought I had them. I threw some pitches exactly where I wanted them, but they weren’t called for strikes. Those were some real close pitches.”

Lasorda wouldn’t say why he removed Reuss from the game, only that: “I don’t want to talk about the walks. I might say something I don’t want to say.”

The implication was that home plate umpire Dutch Rennert wasn’t seeing Reuss’ pitches the same way the Dodgers were. Lasorda couldn’t change umpires, so he decided to change pitchers.

And that quickly changed the complexion of the game for good.

Dodger Notes

Bob Welch tested his right elbow by throwing 20 minutes in the bullpen before Sunday’s game. The next step in his rehabilitation program will be to pitch batting practice Tuesday. . . . Pitching coach Ron Perranoski said Tom Brennan would take Welch’s spot in the rotation Tuesday. Brennan started one game with the White Sox last year and five with the Indians in 1983. Career totals: 16 major league starts, 2 complete games. . . . Sunday’s winning pitcher, Jim Gott, established a couple of firsts. Coming to San Francisco in an off-season trade with Toronto, Gott won his first NL start and collected his first major league hit, an infield roller in the fifth inning. Gott allowed five hits and one run through five innings before leaving the game with a blister on his pitching hand. . . . Giants manager Jim Davenport on Rob Deer: “When he hits, he’s exciting. Certain pitchers ate him up last year (such as right-handers throwing breaking balls), but if we pick the right pitchers for him to hit (such as left-handers throwing fastballs), he can be exciting. When he makes contact, good things happen.” Deer, a graduate of Canyon High in Anaheim, hit 31 home runs at Phoenix last year but also struck out an overwhelming 175 times. Three of his five major-league hits have come against the Dodgers--all of them home runs. . . . Mariano Duncan and Steve Sax were in the lineup together in the ninth inning when Tom Lasorda moved Duncan to shortstop and inserted Sax at second base. A defensive alignment for the future? “We’re going to have to see how things develop at second,” Lasorda said. . . . Pedro Guerrero had three singles Sunday and scored two runs, including the first in a three-run eighth inning. Pinch-hitters Terry Whitfield and Jay Johnstone had back-to-back RBI doubles in the inning.

Dodger Attendance

Sunday’s attendance 48,995

1985 attendance (3 games) 145,766

1984 attendance (3 games) 118,802

Increase 26,964