Dodgers Lose, 16-2; Yes, 16-2 : Team’s Worst Defeat Since ‘67; Pirates Score 9 Runs in 4th

The worst Dodger loss in almost 20 years could not pass without some ceremony, so Manager Tom Lasorda unwrapped the tinfoil from a package of Italian cookies and passed the cookies out to the crowd in his office.

“These are great,” Lasorda said. “You can’t buy these in a store.”

On most nights, you wouldn’t pay to see what masqueraded as a baseball game Friday night in Three Rivers Stadium, either. Under the spell of a full moon and a stands half-full of promotional hot dogs called green weenies, the Dodgers went belly up, 16-2, to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The last time the Dodgers lost by as many as 14 runs was June 29, 1967, in Cincinnati.

This is how bad it was: By the end of the fourth inning, the Dodgers had made four errors, three of them on bounced throws by shortstop Bill Russell. There were 5 walks, 2 balks, 11 Pirate hits and 12 Pirate runs, 10 of them unearned.

“That was about as strange a game as you’ll ever see,” Russell said. Nobody cast a dissenting vote.

Before the night was through, the Pirates would score another run on a strikeout, with a passed ball coming on the third strike, which followed a wild pitch. And one umpire, Frank Pulli, would take ill. The surprise is that Pulli was the only person on the field who did.

Pittsburgh Manager Chuck Tanner, watching Russell push the ball toward first base, wondered afterward if Russell’s arm was hurt. Russell, who came out and talked to reporters while Lasorda kept the clubhouse closed, said the arm was fine. Russell’s ego appeared to be holding up quite well, too.

“A bad night, that’s all,” he said. “Everything hit to me I didn’t throw right. No reason for it. I caught it, threw it and bounced it over there. Maybe they ought to move the base closer.”

Russell, who said he’d made five errors once in a spring-training game, couldn’t recall another three-error game.

“I’ve had better (read worse) ones at home,” he said wryly. “The fans here don’t know me well enough. I usually have a bad game when it’s a TV game or a lot of people in the stands. Tonight was a TV game.

By Pittsburgh standards, the 17,628 fans constituted an overflow crowd. This may be the most livable city in America, as one poll proclaimed this year, but most nights Three Rivers is as deserted as a ghost town.

Not on Friday, however, when fans turned out to welcome back a name from the past: Bob (the Gunner) Prince, the 68-year-old announcer who had been run out of town by the Pirates 10 years ago for being too old and too ornery and too independent.

Prince, who is weakened by cancer, was brought back in hopes that he could bring back crowds that remembered his good-luck gimmicks, like the green weenies that were given out Friday. The Pirates couldn’t have wished for a better scenario: Prince took his familiar place behind the mike in the fourth, when the Pirates broke open a 3-2 game by scoring nine times with two outs.

Until Friday night, the most runs the Pirates had scored in a game this season were six. Russell’s last error, which pulled first baseman Greg Brock off the bag on George Hendrick’s two-out grounder, made it all possible. Even then, the inning might have ended when Brock fired across the diamond to third base, catching Pirate runner Jim Morrison off the bag. But Morrison headed home and arrived safely when third baseman Pedro Guerrero’s throw to the plate was wide.

When shaky Dodger starter Rick Honeycutt issued the last of his four walks--to Jason Thompson, loading the bases--he was through, having thrown 89 pitches in just over a third of a game.

In came Tom (the Flamingo) Brennan, whose first pitch was sent screaming into left for a two-run single by Tony Pena. Brennan’s next pitch hadn’t even arrived when home-plate umpire Joe West called him for a balk. Sixto Lezcano then ripped another two-run single, which was followed by another balk, which brought out Lasorda in protest.

“He (Brennan) didn’t stop,” West said after the game. “Never. I told him what he did wrong.

“Lasorda said the kid’s pitched like that all his life. I said he’s not going to pitch like that here.”

Before long, after Pirate pitcher Larry McWilliams doubled and Bill Almon got his second hit of the inning, a two-run single, Brennan wasn’t pitching at all.

Enter Bobby Castillo, who was greeted by pinch-hitter Johnny Ray’s RBI double. Castillo finally got the last out of the inning, but in the fifth he surrendered a two-run homer to Jason Thompson, Thompson’s third home run in three games. Steve Howe’s turn came in the eighth when catcher Steve Yeager lost track of a third strike to Tony Pena, Doug Frobel scoring on the passed ball.

“I was struggling to the max,” said Honeycutt, who hadn’t pitched in eight days, “and then we continued to give them extra outs.”

That had started with the very first two batters. Honeycutt had leadoff hitter Almon picked off second but second baseman Mike Ramsey missed Honeycutt’s throw. Then Russell threw his first one-hopper of the night for an error on a grounder by Morrison.

“A pitcher dictates how a game goes,” Honeycutt said. “Most games you see like tonight, a pitcher is constantly walking a lot of hitters and behind a lot of hitters.”

The legend-makers, however, would prefer to think that the Prince in the booth had something to do with the way the night went.

“If he can pull it off tomorrow, he’s getting my vote,” Pirate captain Bill Madlock said. “If he gets us runs with Fernando (Valenzuela) pitching, I’ll salute him.”

Winning pitcher McWilliams, who recorded the Pirates’ first complete game this season, went Madlock one better.

“If he gets us runs with Fernando pitching,” McWilliams said, “we’ll send him a chauffeur to get him here every game.”

Dodger Notes The worst loss in Dodger history: May 28, 1967, when the Dodgers lost, 20-3, to the Cubs in Chicago. The last time a team scored 16 runs against the Dodgers was on June 13, 1973, when the Phillies did it in Philadelphia. . . . The Dodgers could have a new double-play combination today, with Steve Sax coming off the disabled list to play second and Mariano Duncan sufficiently recovered from a hamstring pull to play short. Manager Tom Lasorda said he hasn’t made up his mind yet, although Duncan was taking grounders at short. . . . Dodger Vice President Al Campanis, responding to a report that Yankee Manager Billy Martin had mentioned a possible trade for Dodger reliever Tom Niedenfuer, denied that such a deal had been discussed. Campanis said he talked to Yankee General Manager Clyde King, “but we were just passing the time of day.” . . . The Dodgers are in the market for an outfielder, but Campanis said he has not discussed deals with either Cincinnati or St. Louis, two clubs that have surplus outfielders and also are seeking relief help. Said Niedenfuer, when apprised of Martin’s remarks: “No kidding. It wouldn’t surprise me, now that I’ve proved I’m healthy and I’m throwing the ball well.” . . . The nine runs scored by the Pirates in the fourth were all unearned, but by baseball’s scoring rules, the five runs scored against pitcher Tom Brennan were charged against his record. Brennan’s line for the game: 0 innings, 5 runs, 4 hits, a walk and 2 balks. Brennan’s ERA rose from 2.95 to 5.06. . . . The last time the Dodgers gave up nine runs in an inning was May 16, 1982, against the Mets in New York. . . . Dodger shortstops Bill Russell, with six errors, and Dave Anderson, with four, have committed 10 of the Dodgers’ total of 27 errors in 23 games. . . . The Dodgers assigned the contract of Albuquerque outfielder Lemmie Miller to Baltimore’s Rochester (N.Y.) farm team. With Sid Bream now playing some outfield for the Dukes, the move was made to give Miller some playing time. His contract still belongs to the Dodgers.