Dodgers Fall, 2-0, as Rawley Pitches Four-Hit Shutout

It would have been understandable if Philadelphia pitcher Shane Rawley, an eyewitness to a mugging the night before, had barricaded himself in a closet at home Thursday night.

Or hopped on a bus headed out of town, say to nearby Atlantic City, where the odds at the roulette wheel would have been more favorable than the odds on his shutting out the hitmen of the night before, the Dodgers.

But Rawley disdained the safe course and wound up throwing some fear into the Dodgers, allowing just four hits in a 2-0 win that salvaged a little dignity for the Phillies after they had lost the first two games of Los Angeles’ last visit of the season here, including Wednesday night’s 15-6 laugher.

“I watched it all,” Rawley said of that 22-hit pounding.

“Sure, it was more of an incentive. If I do good, super. If I do bad, then I was just like everybody else getting hit.

“I take it upon myself to try to stick the bat up their noses, so to say. I take the embarrassment as a personal thing. I hate to see that happen.”

There was no danger of a recurrence Thursday, not after the Phillies’ left-hander walked three Dodgers in the second inning but came out of it without a scratch. The Dodgers were shut out for only the third time this season and for the first time by a team other than the San Diego Padres.

Those same Padres, by the way, trimmed the Dodgers’ lead to seven games in the National League West by completing a three-game sweep of the Expos in Montreal.

Rawley, a former American Leaguer (Mariners and Yankees) who went eight seasons without swinging a bat in anger, also doubled in one of the Phillies’ runs off Jerry Reuss (11-8), who tap-danced through seven innings of peril but couldn’t avoid losing after three straight wins.

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Reuss said of the pitch that the .100-hitting Rawley rifled into right field for his second hit of the night and sixth in 42 at-bats this season with two out in the fourth. That hit scored John Russell, who also had doubled.

“It just goes to show you,” Reuss added, “that anytime a guy has a bat in his hands he can be a hitter.”

And sometimes you can have a bat in your hands and be a menace only to yourself, which is what happened to Reuss. With two on and two out in the second, he grounded out to end the inning. With two on and none out in the fourth, he bunted into a force play, and the next batter, Mariano Duncan, grounded into a double play, one of three turned by the Phillies.

“I should have bunted those guys over,” he said. “I have no one to blame but myself.”

While Reuss was of no help to himself, his teammates continually came to his rescue during a 10-hit, three-walk performance in which the Phillies put the leadoff man on base in all but two of the innings Reuss worked.

“I didn’t have an easy inning, did I?” Reuss said. “Every inning was an effort.”

In the first, after Juan Samuel’s triple, center fielder Candy Maldonado climbed halfway up the fence to take extra bases away from Glenn Wilson, who had to settle for a sacrifice fly and an RBI, giving the Phillies a 1-0 lead.

In the second, Duncan made like Baryshnikov to keep Rawley’s hit from going into the outfield and scoring Rick Schu, who instead was thrown out at the plate by the balletic Dodger shortstop.

In the third, Bob Bailor made a backhanded stop for an inning-ending force, and started another double play in the sixth with two runners on.

And catcher Mike Scioscia threw out runners attempting to steal in both the fifth and the seventh.

But as supportive as they were of Reuss defensively, the Dodgers were rendered helpless at the plate by Rawley, who allowed singles to Bailor, Scioscia and Mike Marshall, and an eighth-inning double to Steve Sax, but no more.

“One thing about this game,” said Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, asked if he would have liked to have hoarded a few runs from Wednesday, “you can’t save ‘em.”

The Dodgers are 3-3 halfway through this trip. Should they maintain that .500 pace for their remaining 44 games, they would finish with 93 wins. To match that, the Padres would have to win two out of every three of their 42 remaining games, a .667 pace.

“But I never think about it that way,” Reuss said. “That’s losers’ talk. That’s assuming we’re coasting.

“I say, go out there and win tonight’s game. We’ve got the lead, let them (the Padres) worry about it.

“If we win, they can’t do a thing. The most important game is the next one we play. We have to deal with what’s happening on the field. We don’t have to deal with what’s up on the scoreboard.”

Dodger Notes Shane Rawley’s shutout was his first in his two seasons in the National League. “I felt that I needed to establish myself on the inside part of the plate,” Rawley said. “That freed up the outside part of the plate, where I threw change-ups for a lot of little ground-ball outs.” That’s the way he worked Pedro Guerrero, who hit three ground balls and struck out once, on a change. “It’s a touchy situation with Pedro,” Rawley said, “because the night before he hit one into the third deck on a pitch inside.” . . . Dave Dravecky of the Padres shut out the Dodgers, 4-0, on June 18. Four Padre pitchers shut out the Dodgers, 1-0, on April 28. The Dodgers have been shut out fewer times than any other team in the National League. San Diego is next, with five. . . . With two out and Steve Sax on third in the eighth, Manager Tom Lasorda sent Greg Brock to pinch-hit against the left-handed Rawley, even though Brock was hitting .172 against left-handers. “I thought he had a chance to hit the ball out of the ballpark if he got his pitch,” Lasorda said. Brock, who hit a home run off Rawley last season, grounded to short. . . . Steve Yeager, hitless in six at-bats Wednesday, did not play Thursday against the left-handed Rawley, as he normally would. “His knee’s bothering him a little bit,” Lasorda said. . . . Enos Cabell, who has missed the last eight games, said he would have pinch hit in the ninth for Mike Scioscia if Candy Maldonado had reached base. Cabell, out with a strained abdominal muscle, hopes to play tonight. . . . The Dodgers, 22-32 vs. left-handers last season, are 21-11 against them in 1985. . . . Jerry Reuss’ three strikeouts Thursday left him one short of 1,700 for his career.. . . Guerrero’s home run Wednesday means he now has hit at least one home run against every team in the league this season.