Team Valenzuela Does It All in Three-Hitter Over Cardinals

Fernando Valenzuela did his impersonation of a baseball team Saturday night, providing the hitting, the fielding and, of course, the pitching for nine. The rest of the Dodgers didn’t exactly take the night off--they kept trotting onto the field every inning, and it seemed like they all took their cuts--but they might as well have watched the game on DiamondVision. Valenzuela did everything but drag the infield.

To begin with, there was his pitching in the Dodgers’ 3-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals. Valenzuela’s three-hitter counted as his fifth shutout and his 12th complete game, and it was his sixth win in his last seven starts. Valenzuela (11-8) has gone the distance in five of his last six starts, but this was against the best hitting and best running team in the National League.

But you can get used to his pitching, even if you never quite solve it. The Cardinals didn’t come to Dodger Stadium expecting to cuff him around. Nobody cuffs him around. Three hits, when Valenzuela is going good, is about all you can ask, even with the league’s top two hitters (Willie McGee and Tommy Herr) in the lineup.

But who expected he’d pick off the only runner to reach second? Who thought Valenzuela would catch the only well-hit ball of the game? Who thought he’d drive in a run with an intended sacrifice bunt that somehow ended up in the outfield?

‘He does a lot of things to help himself,” sighed Cardinal Manager Whitey Herzog, whose team has lost three straight to the Dodgers going into today’s series finale. “He’s a good athlete, and I’m not kidding.”

The Cardinals are still first in their division, but it is a division that does not include the Dodgers, one of baseball’s hottest and unpredictable teams. The Dodgers, with a different lineup almost every night, stayed atop the NL West, a half-game ahead of the San Diego Padres, who also keep winning.

A case could be made that the game belonged to the Dodger hitters, who managed to group four singles in the first inning off Cardinal pitcher John Tudor (10-8) for the important runs. There was Bill Russell driving Mariano Duncan home with a hard smash to third. There was Enos Cabell, the New Blue, driving Russell home with a single to center.

But if you argue it was Valenzuela’s game, you win.

Never mind his pitching, although that’s the first thing that comes to mind. Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda may gush from time to time but not like he did Saturday night after his ace mowed them down before a crowd of 48,582.

“What a great game he pitched,” Lasorda began. “Talk about command of his stuff throughout the game, he was awesome. He pitched like a surgeon, did everything you’re supposed to do. And he got some tremendous hitters out. And he gets tougher in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. A lot of guys look toward the bullpen then. He doesn’t even know he has one.”

The league’s best hitting team just couldn’t hit him. Of the Cardinals’ three hits, only Jack Clark’s second-inning single was bona fide. McGee, the league’s leading hitter, got a double out of a grounder that hopped over third baseman Dave Anderson’s head, and Herr got a single off, well, that’s a story in itself.

Speedster Vince Coleman, baseball’s stolen-base leader, was on first, due to an error, and was proceeding to second, due to Herr’s hard grounder toward first. It might have gone into the outfield, who knows? What we do know is that it hit Coleman on the leg for the third out. Coleman may be faster than a speeding bullet, but he’s not fast enough to get out of the way of a really hot grounder.

But never mind Valenzuela’s pitching. There was his play on the field, too. In the fourth inning, he simply turned around and nailed a drowsy McGee off second base. Duncan tagged him about five feet from the bag. Then there was Valenzuela’s self-defense play in the eighth, when pinch-hitter Brian Harper hit the shot of the night, right back to the mound. Valenzuela sank to the ground and caught the ball shoulder high.

“He can do it all,” said Lasorda, still singing his praises.

The play that really pulled the fans out of their seats involved Valenzuela at the plate, which surprised even Valenzuela. “I don’t hit left-handers,” he said, laughing. Well, he didn’t really tag this one, but he managed an RBI single out of it. With one out and runners on first and second, Valenzuela stepped into the ball to bunt. But he noticed shortstop Ozzie Smith breaking in to join third baseman Terry Pendleton just feet in front of him at home plate. He slapped at the ball, drove it into the outfield, and Candy Maldonado scampered home.

Herzog groused afterward that Smith’s “not supposed to break.” All the same, it was a heads-up play on Valenzuela’s part.

Russell, who got three hits, said the Dodgers’ runs, accomplished lately without home run hitter Pedro Guerrero, has been done with the “little things.” He said: “We don’t have the bombers we had in the 70s. But we do the little things, we bunt runners over, whatever it takes.” Also, he said, “Good pitching beats good hitting any time, always has here.” And Valenzuela can do both.

Dodger Notes

Pedro Guerrero, the Dodgers’ brute strength with 21 home runs, took some batting practice Saturday. Guerrero, out with a bad back, could start as early as next Tuesday or even pinch-hit by today’s game. . . . The Dodgers overtook the Cardinals as the league leader in ERA. St. Louis, which came in to the series with a 3.01 ERA, increased two hundredths. The Dodgers came into the game with a 3.02 ERA.