Once in Blue Moon: Landreaux, Scioscia Homer, Giants Win

There was a blue moon rising over Dodger Stadium Wednesday night, almost as rare an occurence as home runs here by Ken Landreaux and Mike Scioscia.

But while it might have made for a nice celestial setting to close out the Dodgers’ most productive home stand in 19 seasons, Jeff Leonard and Alex Trevino of the Giants spoiled the view a bit.

Leonard, the Giants’ so-called “Hack Man,” who has been more hacker than hitter this season, hit two home runs, and backup catcher Trevino drove in four runs, matching his total for the season, in the Giants’ 7-5 win over the Dodgers in front of a crowd of 45,297.

The Dodgers, who had come from behind to beat San Francisco in the first two games of the series, couldn’t overcome the 6-2 lead that Jerry Reuss spotted the Giants in the first three innings of this one.

But they finished the home stand with a 10-4 record, finished the month with a 20-7 July record and are assured of no worse than a tie for first place in the National League West should the season end on Aug. 6, the day of the strike deadline.

With five games to be played before the strike date, the Dodgers remained five games ahead of the second-place San Diego Padres, six in the loss column. The only team that can catch them is their next opponent, the Cincinnati Reds, who are 5 1/2 back but only five in the loss column.

“The way I look at it,” said Reuss, who departed after Trevino’s three-run home run with nobody out in the third, “we still have August, September and the first week of October to go.

“Everybody else is putting limitations on it (the season), but I haven’t thought about it.”

Reuss may not be dwelling on the possibility, but the thought has occurred to Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda.

“It means something if they go out on strike,” Lasorda said, “but I don’t know if they’re going out or not.

“I just told the team that this was a tremendous home stand, that they played awfully hard and with a lot of aggressiveness.”

The Giants, meanwhile, salvaged a win on a night their owner, Bob Lurie, reportedly agreed to talk about a sale of the team with local San Francisco developer Peter Stocker.

Stocker reportedly said that an agreement had been reached whereby he would purchase a majority interest in the team from Lurie. But there are a number of contingencies, the foremost reportedly being the construction of a stadium in downtown San Francisco.

Giant officials said late Wednesday night that Lurie had “agreed to discuss the possible purchase” of the Giants and “a lot of other conditions.”

A condition that probably won’t enter into the talks is the blue moon, what astronomers call the circumstance in which two full moons appear in the same month. Only in Lasorda’s dreams does the moon actually turn the color blue.

The Giants had Reuss seeing stars with six hits in their first nine at-bats and with nine hits by the time the left-hander made his exit. Leonard’s 400-foot rocket launch with a runner on base highlighted the Giants’ three-run first. Trevino, who came into the game batting .156, singled in a run in the first and finished off Reuss with his home run.

“I don’t know what to say--it was one of those nights,” Reuss said. “All I know is they got six runs in a hurry.”

The cushion nearly became more burden than blessing for Giant starter Bill Laskey, who lost 11 of his first 12 decisions this season with a good deal of nonsupport from his teammates.

“When a guy gets seven runs it’s supposed to be easy to pitch,” said Laskey, who survived the first home runs hit here this season by Landreaux and Scioscia.

“But I made it tough on myself tonight. At times I was asking myself, ‘Is seven runs enough to win tonight?’ ”

Landreaux’s first-inning home run, a line drive that just cleared the fence in right, was his first in 130 at-bats in Dodger Stadium this season. Scioscia’s home run, in the fourth, was his first at home in 115 at-bats.

In May, Landreaux was hitting .080 (4 for 50) at home, but in the last month he has raised his overall average more than 30 points.

He walked and scored on Pedro Guerrero’s double in the third, walked again in the fifth and chopped a single over first baseman David Green’s head in the seventh, sending Enos Cabell from first to third.

“When Landreaux hit that ball over Green’s head,” said Giant reliever Scott Garrelts, who had been hammered here in a 10-5 loss on Monday, “I thought, ‘Here we go again.’ ”

Cabell, who had reached on a one-out single against Garrelts, scored the Dodgers’ fifth run on Guerrero’s grounder in the hole that Giant shortstop Jose Uribe turned into a force play.

But Garrelts got out of the inning when he struck out Greg Brock on a high fastball with a full count.

Dodger Notes

Third-base coach Joe Amalfitano isn’t shaking hands anymore after a Dodger home run. “Now when they come around, I’ll just wave at ‘em,” said Amalfitano, who made the mistake of extending his right hand to Steve Sax on Sax’s game-winning home run Tuesday night and may have had his thumb broken by Sax. “We didn’t really shake hands--he just sort of grabbed my thumb,” said Amalfitano, who arrived at the park Wednesday with his thumb heavily bandaged and will have it X-rayed today. Because of Amalfitano’s injury, Manager Tom Lasorda hit ground balls to the infielders during batting practice. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” said Amalfitano, who hasn’t been hurt in uniform since he tore up his ankle in a minor league game in 1966. . . . Dodger infield coach Monty Basgall also wasn’t feeling well, complaining of dizziness. . . . Pedro Guerrero finally wound up on a magazine cover, appearing on Sports Illustrated’s this week. “I don’t want them to do it because I talked about that,” said Guerrero, who in the past has complained of being overlooked by the national media. “Probably some people were thinking, ‘Let’s try to help this poor guy, put him on the cover.’ I don’t want them to feel sorry for me.” Not to worry, Pete. The suspicion here is that somebody at the magazine noticed that Guerrero has been hitting over .400 in his last 30 games. . . . Lasorda said that with Dave Anderson on the 15-day disabled list with back problems, Enos Cabell will be the third baseman. “I may play (Bob) Bailor once in a while,” Lasorda said. . . . Lasorda, talking about Fernando Valenzuela’s five walks Tuesday after his eight-walk game in his last start: “In defense of Fernando, he didn’t feel good. He had an upset stomach that really bothered him, but he didn’t tell anybody.” . . . Lasorda defended Jay Johnstone, who is eligible to come off the disabled list Friday but probably will remain on it. “How many times has (Rick) Sutcliffe been on the DL,” said Lasorda, aware that the Cub pitcher went on the disabled list for the third time this week, whereas Johnstone has been disabled only twice, albeit for all but nine games. “Get on Sutcliffe, not my guy,” Lasorda said. The Dodgers undoubtedly will activate Johnstone on Sept. 1, when rosters can be expanded to 40 players. The Dodgers would have to pay Johnstone for the balance of the season even if they released him, so they’re satisfied, for the time being, that he’s filling his role as clubhouse foil.