Sleepy Dodgers Wake Up in 8th, Beat Braves, 9-7

The Dodgers pushed fatigue to its illogical limits Monday night and still came up a winner, defying jet lag, gravity and the law of averages to beat the Atlanta Braves, 9-7, in a snappy 3 hours 46 minutes, the Dodgers’ longest nine-inning game of the season.

This game was supposed to have been played a month ago. Instead, baseball went on strike, and what was to have been a travel day Monday became another day at the office for the Dodgers, who could have used the rest after taking 5 hours and 14 innings to lose to the New York Mets on Sunday.

Instead, they boarded a plane for the five-hour flight here, arrived at the hotel around 4 a.m. Monday and fell asleep about the time the first order of grits was hitting the griddle on Peachtree Street.

Then they rubbed the sleep from their eyes and rubbed out Atlanta with a five-run eighth inning that caused Braves’ broadcaster Skip Caray to exclaim in disgust: “Look at it this way. If there hadn’t been a strike, we wouldn’t have to be watching this thing.”

A couple of weeks ago, the Braves had only sold about 500 tickets for this rescheduled game, according to a team official. Eventually, 3,137 showed up at Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium, including Atlanta owner Ted Turner, described as a “modern day hero among today’s masses” in his team’s media guide but who looked like just another lonely guy in the acres of empty seats.

But if the faithful few, including Turner, had stayed home instead, think of what they would have missed:

--Brian Holton’s first win in his big-league debut, even though the only batter the Dodger rookie faced, Ken Oberkfell, chopped a two-run single over the head of third baseman Bill Madlock.

Was that the way Holton--the pitcher of record when the Dodgers staged their comeback--always had heard it would be?

“No, not really,” he said. “I was sitting in the clubhouse when we scored all those runs and I thought, ‘I think I got the win.’ ”

--Three hits by Mike Scioscia, bidding to become the first Dodger catcher in 30 years to hit .300, his average at the moment. Among those hits was his sixth home run, the most home runs he’s hit in a season since he was playing Class-A ball at Clinton, Iowa, in 1977. It was at Clinton where Scioscia also stole nine bases, a total he has not come close to approaching in the major leagues.

Were the fences closer and the basepaths shorter in Iowa?

“How many times have I told you I’m not a power hitter,” Scioscia said. “Six home runs is nothing to write home about. If I wrote home about it, they’d say, ‘Yeah, we know you’re not a power hitter.’ ”

How about a .300 hitter?

“Maybe 300 pounds,” Scioscia said.

--A game-tying, two-run pinch single by Franklin Stubbs, which took what Brave first baseman Gerald Perry called “the worst hop I’ve ever seen.”

Perry should know. He was in position to field Stubbs’ bases-loaded bouncer when it suddenly swerved like a football halfback dodging a tackle.

Which was only appropriate since the ball hit at about the 20-yard line, still visible after Sunday’s Falcons-Lions game.

“I put Atlanta Falcons’ English on it,” Stubbs said.

--Then Mike Marshall put the Dodger hex on star-crossed Brave reliever Bruce Sutter, who represents Turner’s biggest investment this side of MGM but has resembled a Hollywood bomb against the Dodgers.

Sutter, who had two cortisone shots in his shoulder a couple of weeks ago, came in Monday to protect a 6-3 lead and gave up Steve Sax’s RBI single, Stubbs’ cue shot and a tie-breaking, two-run single by Marshall, who earlier had hit his 20th home run of the season and third in three games off Brave starter Len Barker.

Sutter, beaten earlier this season by home runs by Pedro Guerrero and Terry Whitfield, is 0-3 against the Dodgers. In 5 innings, he has given up seven runs for an 11.81 earned-run average.

Asked what he’d say if someone had told him at the beginning of the season that he’d beat Sutter three times, Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said:

“I’d say you’ve got some crystal ball. You must be a magician.”

Lasorda, who used 22 players Sunday, did a little more sleight-of-hand with his roster Monday, running another 22 players into the game, his own version of the two-platoon system.

“Tommy’s the best at using so many players--or the worst,” Marshall said with a grin. “He might have won us a game using all those players tonight.”

Lasorda, his bullpen worn out, wound up using rookie Dennis Powell, who recorded his first big-league save in his native Georgia, though he kept the suspense level high by loading the bases in the ninth and wild-pitching in one run before getting Oberkfell to line to Sax to end the game.

“Everyone’s tired,” said Scioscia, who could have singled out Ken Howell, who pitched in his third straight game, or Tom Niedenfuer, who threw only two pitches, the second of which Perry lined into the right-field corner in the Braves’ four-run seventh. The over-worked Niedenfuer had more velocity on his glove when he flung it into the dugout than he did on the pitch to Perry.

“Anyone who says they’re not tired is lying,” Scioscia said.

At the end of the game, Bobby Castillo, who is supposed to start in one game of today’s doubleheader, was throwing in the bullpen.

“He always likes to loosen up the day before,” Lasorda said, deadpan.

The Dodgers play two doubleheaders in the next four days, but Scioscia said it was no time to be looking for excuses.

“That’s why it’s 162 games,” he said. “We’ve stuck it out all the way, now we have to sprint to the finish.”

But will they ever play another game in less than three hours?

“You got to talk to the pitchers, man,” Stubbs said. “I was just sittin’ there and watchin’, just like you.”

Dodger Notes

Bob Welch went 5 innings and was lifted with a 3-2 lead after giving up Glenn Hubbard’s home run in the sixth, followed by a walk and a single.. . . Pedro Guerrero sat out Monday’s game and said his left wrist was no better. . . . Enos Cabell completed his testimony in the Pittsburgh drug trafficking trial Monday and said he was instructed by the court not to make any public comments until the trial was over. “And I may not say anything then,” Cabell said. . . . Dodger Vice President Al Campanis, who accompanied the team here, said there was a possibility that pitcher Alejandro Pena may be activated for the playoffs. “It’s going to be determined by how well Pena does,” said Campanis, adding that he expects to see Pena pitch at Cincinnati this weekend. “He could be eligible. Tommy, the coaches and myself will all have to sit down and give it a real go-through.” Campanis said that Pena will pitch for Licey in the Dominican Republic this winter. . . . Mike Scioscia has a chance to be the first Dodger catcher to hit .300 in 30 years, or since Hall of Famer Roy Campanella hit .318 with 32 home runs and 107 RBIs in his 1955 MVP season. John Roseboro’s highest average was .287 (1964), Tom Haller’s best was .286 (1970). . . . The Dodgers’ last 29 games are against teams in their division. They finished 40-32 against the East this season, after going 27-45 in interdivisional play last season. . . . Brave slugger Bob Horner missed his third straight game with a severe cold.