Lasorda Shuffles Deck, Comes Up With 7-4 Victory : Newcomers Help; Brock Hits 2 Homers

With the leading men continuing to drop out of sight, the Dodger extras reworked the script at Wrigley Field Friday afternoon.

Naturally, they gave themselves all the best lines and concocted an implausible ending, doing a “Rambo” number on Chicago’s monster reliever, Lee Smith, in a 7-4 victory over the Cubs.

The Dodgers’ fifth straight win sent them 11 games over .500, a vantage point they have not enjoyed since 1983, and kept them a half-game behind the first-place San Diego Padres, who beat St. Louis, 2-0, Friday night.

Short of bodies because of Pedro Guerrero’s sprained back, R.J. Reynolds’ aching ribs, Mike Marshall’s appendix and Mariano Duncan’s sore knee, Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda cast Enos Cabell as his third baseman and Len Matuszek as his left fielder, positions the two newest Dodgers had to play by memory--vague ones at that.

“Thank God, Al got those guys for me,” said Lasorda, referring to the two deals made by Dodger Vice President Al Campanis earlier this week. “We’re playing with a short deck.”

So short, Lasorda also started seldom-used Terry Whitfield in right field and moved Dave Anderson back to shortstop, where he hadn’t played regularly since April.

What happened? After Greg Brock, who moved from supporting to starring role in the absence of Guerrero, hit the first of his two two-run homers to help cut a 4-0 deficit to 4-3 in the sixth, Cabell singled in the eighth to knock out Cub reliever George Frazier.

In came the 6-6 Smith, whose 19 saves place him second only to Montreal’s Jeff Reardon in the National League. Smith struck out Brock, but Matuszek grounded a triple into the right-field corner for his first hit as a Dodger, scoring Cabell to make it 4-4.

Then Whitfield, who was 3 for 32 since May 14, drove a Smith slider to the wall in center for a double, scoring Matuszek, and the Dodgers led, 5-4.

Brock’s 14th home run in the ninth, which followed Cabell’s two-out infield hit, finished off the shaken Smith and the Cubs, who also are playing with half of a deck and can’t hide it.

“I’ve only been here three days, but I already feel like I’ve been here three months,” said Matuszek, whose last exposure to the Dodgers was not a happy one.

That came last season, when he was still with the Phillies and sent out to left field for the first time in his big-league career. The man he replaced in left was the man the Dodgers traded to Toronto for him, Al Oliver.

“I guess Oliver had something wrong with his arm and his agent said he didn’t want to play the outfield,” Matuszek said.

So Matuszek was elected, though not by his teammates’ acclamation.

“Dave Anderson hit a line drive that I took two steps in and watched it go over my head,” Matuszek said. “When I came back to the bench, you could hear murmuring, guys saying, ‘What’s he doing out there?’ I didn’t hear that here.”

Instead, Matuszek said, he heard encouragement. “They told me, ‘We know you can play, forget about what has happened (in the past), come here and start over.’ ”

When the Cubs started out by scoring four runs in the first five innings against Orel Hershiser, Matuszek feared the worst.

“I’ve got to be honest. I’m new here, but I thought, ‘This is going to be a blowout,’ ” Matuszek said.

“But we hung in there. Greg hit the home run that got us back in it, and everybody’s contributing. Tommy is using everybody, and everybody is anxious to get in there and do something.”

Matuszek got around on an inside fastball from Smith and grounded it just inside the bag and past first baseman Richie Hebner, who had moved from third to first after Leon Durham fouled a ball off his big toe.

Hebner was not guarding the line, violating one of the cardinal rules of the game in a late-inning situation, but Cub Manager Jim Frey spoke in his defense.

“Hebner was playing fairly close to the line,” Frey said. “Matuszek is not a pull-hitter, No. 1, and when Smitty gets two strikes on a hitter, you don’t stand on the line. It wasn’t like he was out of position.”

Hebner, who was holding Cabell on first, moved off the bag with the pitch. “I take three steps, and all of a sudden the ball’s over the bag,” he said. “Then it died in the bullpen.”

Then Whitfield, whom Smith figured to overmatch, delivered with a drive that rolled to the wall in right-center, the most striking evidence of how things have turned for a team that now has won five in a row for the first time this season and 11 of its last 13.

“Right now, you can’t explain it,” said Brock, whose own turnabout mirrors the team’s. “In situations where we’re not winning and struggling, Lee Smith is going to come in and shut us down. But when things are going well, there’s something about it.

“It’s a mean game, really. It can turn around in a second.”

At the moment, though, it’s only sweet for the Dodgers.

“We’re playing really good baseball without Pete (Guerrero),” said Cabell, his uniform caked with dirt from his slide into the plate in the eighth.

“When we get Pete back, we should really be something.”

Dodger Notes

Shortstop Mariano Duncan, who had surgery to remove cartilage from his right knee in 1982, sat out Friday’s game with soreness in the knee. Duncan said the knee started bothering him June 15 in Houston, when Dennis Walling of the Astros slid in hard to break up a double play. “The last game we played in Pittsburgh, I slid into second, and my knee was a little sore,” Duncan said. “Then I slid into third, too. I’ll have to wait and see (about playing today). I’ll try very hard. I don’t like to sit on the bench and watch another guy play my position.” . . . Enos Cabell, who hadn’t caught a fly ball in a regular-season game in 10 years, fielded a grounder at third for the first time since the ’82 season when he handled Jody Davis’ broken-bat bouncer in the second. Cabell played four games at third in ’83 for Detroit but had no chances. “Once I get comfortable, I’ll be all right,” Cabell said. “I didn’t want to mess up and hear everybody saying they shouldn’t have put me over there.” . . . Orel Hershiser departed after giving up two runs in the fourth and fifth, the first run scoring on Dick Ruthven’s squeeze bunt on which Hershiser was charged with an error. Keith Moreland’s double in the fifth knocked out Hershiser, who gave up six hits and walked three. “I was erratic, I didn’t have very good command,” he said. . . . After rookie Dennis Powell left Moreland stranded on third and Carlos Diaz worked a 1-2-3 sixth, Tom Niedenfuer pitched the final three innings for his eighth save. . . . Ron Cey, who was struck in the back by a Bob Welch fastball Thursday, has bruised ribs and probably won’t play until after the All-Star break. The Cubs already have Gary Matthews and Rick Sutcliffe on the disabled list, Bob Dernier isn’t ready to play full-time, Dennis Eckersley has tendinitis in his shoulder, and Leon Durham went out after fouling a ball off his toe.