Welch Wins Eighth Straight; Dodgers’ String at 52 Innings

Assuming the Dodgers had dared to glimpse into a mirror during the first two months of the season, they would have found an uncanny resemblance Wednesday night in the Atlanta Braves.

These days, of course, there is no looking back for the Dodgers, who won their sixth straight game, 5-0, over the Braves before 39,627 at Dodger Stadium.

And no one has less reason to dwell on the past than pitcher Bob Welch, who became the first Dodger since Fernando Valenzuela in 1981 to win eight straight games with his five-hitter. Welch’s shutout ran the Dodgers’ streak of consecutive innings without allowing an earned run to 52.

But catcher Mike Scioscia recalled the time just before the Dodgers began playing at a 49-23 pace, matching the St. Louis Cardinals for the best record in baseball during that span. He remembers a day in May when the Dodgers were three games under .500 and going nowhere at double time.

“The Braves are playing now like we were at the beginning of the season,” Scioscia said. “I saw a lot of the same things that we did at the beginning of the season.”

Scioscia remembered the days when it was the Dodgers who threw the ball all over the place, as Atlanta did Wednesday night, turning a simple bunt play into a chamber of horrors for Brave pitcher Craig McMurtry.

And he remembers when the Dodgers were as big a bust at the plate as the Braves, who haven’t scored an earned run since the eighth inning of their game Sunday at San Francisco.

Scioscia wasn’t alone in his thoughts. “I think they (the Braves) went into the season as one of the favorites,” said third baseman Bob Bailor, who made a rare start in place of sore-ribbed Enos Cabell and saved a run with a backhanded stop of Glenn Hubbard’s tricky hopper down the line in the fifth with a runner on third.

“Now they’re so far back, things just aren’t going well. I’ve seen it a lot in the past. I’ve been on the other side.

“It’s a snowball effect. When you’re going bad, things keep happening like that.”

Things like the botched-up bunt play in the third that led to the Dodgers’ first two runs, a result of what Brave third baseman Ken Oberkfell called “mass confusion.”

The inning started with Welch’s first extra-base hit in two seasons, a double that reached the 385-foot sign in left on one hop.

“I was just as surprised as anybody else,” Welch said.

Welch was supposed to have been opposed by Len Barker, winner of one game in the last year. But when Barker scratched with a stiff neck, the Braves rolled out McMurtry, winless this season and just recalled from the minor leagues when Pascual Perez went on the disabled list. Before his demotion, McMurtry had an 11.08 ERA.

When Mariano Duncan bunted down the third-base line, McMurtry charged off the mound with surprising agility for such a big man (6-5). He then spun around and threw a fastball toward third base. But somewhere in mid-delivery, McMurtry belatedly discovered that third baseman Oberkfell had left the bag unoccupied.

Oberkfell, meanwhile, yelled for McMurtry to throw to first base, while catcher Rick Cerone yelled third base--until he realized too late there was no one there.

What to do? McMurtry threw toward the only body he saw--Joe Amalfitano, the Dodger third-base coach, who ducked McMurtry’s bullet but never stopped windmilling his right arm as Welch scored.

“That was a first for me,” Amalfitano said. “I saw it coming.”

Duncan wound up on second as the throw caromed off the auxiliary scoreboard beyond the Dodger dugout.

Bailor’s sacrifice moved Duncan to third, and Ken Landreaux followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-0.

“I knew I didn’t have to make my bunt too good,” Bailor said, “because I knew there was no way he (McMurtry) was going to (throw to) third again.”

Welch walked to open the fifth. He went to third when Duncan showed bunt but chopped a double over the head of first baseman Bob Horner, instead. A wild pitch scored Welch to make it 3-0. Duncan was cut down at the plate when Brave center-fielder Dale Murphy grabbed Bailor’s liner off his left shoelaces and threw off-balance to Cerone, who tagged out the sliding Duncan.

In the eighth, Welch reached base for a third time when he faked a bunt and singled to right.

“That’s the key to having a good year,” Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser said, “when your batting average is higher than your earned-run average.”

At the moment, Welch, who is batting .231, is the only Dodger who can make that claim. Welch lowered his ERA to 1.67 after his fifth complete game in the last six starts, in which he struck out eight and walked just one.

“The thing that’s amazing is he’s going the distance and he doesn’t worry about the arm,” said Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, whose own anxieties about Welch’s right elbow have been laid to rest.

“He has the confidence that he can go all the way. He maintains his stuff throughout the game.”

Two more throwing errors in the Dodger seventh--by Oberkfell and second baseman Hubbard--led to two more runs. Landreaux, who reached base three times, stole a base and had a sacrifice fly, singled in one run. Greg Brock’s fielder’s choice brought home the other.

“It’s always something with this team,” Lasorda said. “It’s like the octopus. If one tentacle doesn’t work, the other ones do.”

At the moment, no Dodger arm is working better than Welch’s. “I’m not afraid to wake up at all,” he said at the suggestion that his current streak has a dreamlike quality. “I’m well aware of what’s going on.

“Things can turn around in a hurry. A perfect example is the way we’re playing now. We weren’t going anywhere in June, then boom, it was totally different in July. But there’s still a lot of baseball left.”

But for the Dodgers, who maintained their eight-game lead in the National League West, that baseball is rolling only one way.

“Good things,” Bailor said, “keep happening to us.”

Dodger Notes According to the Dodger publicity office, the 52 consecutive innings without allowing an earned run may be a Los Angeles record. The previous longest streak came in 1966, when the Dodger staff had a run of 48 innings without an earned run, a streak that included four straight shutouts. . . . Pedro Guerrero came out of the game with a sore left knee after his seventh-inning bloop single but is expected to play this afternoon. . . . Third baseman Enos Cabell sat out Wednesday night’s game with a strained muscle in his left side, according to trainer Bill Buhler. Cabell, who was injured on his last at-bat in Tuesday’s 2-1 win, received an injection and said he was so sore he couldn’t take his car keys out of the ignition when he got home. . . . Bob Bailor started in Cabell’s place. It was only the fourth start in the last two months for Bailor. “I’m going to run the bases to make sure where they’re all at,” Bailor said during batting practice. When he returned to the cage, he said: “I just followed the tracks.” . . . In the last two games, Ken Landreaux has reached base seven times. His stolen base was his 13th of the season, three more than he had in all of 1984. . . . The last time the Braves were this far out of first place--18 games--was in 1979, when they lost 94 games and finished sixth, 23 1/2 games out. . . . Dale Murphy, the league’s leading home run hitter with 30, is 0 for 12 with 4 strikeouts in the first three games here. Murphy has hit only two balls out of the infield. . . . Shortstop Mariano Duncan made the defensive play of the game for the Dodgers with a leaping backhanded grab of Milt Thompson’s liner in the eighth. . . . Vero Beach Manager Stan Wasiak tied the all-time record for wins as a minor-league manager when he posted No. 2,496 as the Dodgers of the Florida State League defeated West Palm Beach, 6-1, Wednesday night at Vero Beach, Fla. Wasiak, 65, equaled Bob Coleman’s record and will have a chance to break it tonight, also against West Palm Beach.

THE STREAK GOES ON FOR DODGER PITCHERS

A game-by-game look at the Dodgers’ consecutive-innings streak of not allowing an earned run, which reached 52 innings after a 5-0 win over the Braves Wednesday night.

DATE OPP. PITCHER IP STREAK H R ER BB SO Aug. 9 Reds Welch 7* 7* 5 0 0 2 2 Aug. 10 Reds Valenzuela 9 16 4 1 0 3 8 Aug. 11 Reds Reuss 9 25 6 0 0 1 5 Aug. 12 Braves Honeycutt 6 31 2 0 0 1 2 Niedenfuer 3 34 1 0 0 0 3 Aug. 13 Braves Hershiser 7 41 4 1 0 3 4 Diaz 1 42 1 0 0 0 0 Howell 42 1 0 0 0 0 Niedenfuer 43 0 0 0 0 1 Aug. 14 Braves Welch 9 52 5 0 0 1 8 Totals for Six Games 52 29 2 0 11 3

DATE RESULT Aug. 9 W, 3-1* Aug. 10 W, 2-1 Aug. 11 W, 4-0 Aug. 12 W, 3-0 Aug. 13 W, 2-1 Aug. 14 W, 5-0 Totals for Six Games

* Streak started after the second inning of Dodgers’ Aug. 9 game with the Reds. Welch had given up a leadoff home run in the second inning to Nick Esasky. The Dodgers have lowered their team ERA from 2.98 to 2.83 during the streak.