This Time, Dodgers Win by 1

Los Angeles sports fans have a reputation for leaving events before they are decided.

But the Dodgers have devised a plan to keep the customers around until the end. They make it suspenseful until the final out.

With Orel Hershiser fighting off the effects of a blister and Franklin Stubbs hitting his third home run, the Dodgers concluded a thrilling, if not productive, homestand with a 3-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants Sunday.

Most of the Dodger Stadium crowd of 45,410 was still on hand when Hershiser retired pinch-hitter Brad Gulden on a grounder to second with the potential tying and winning runs on base. The Giants’ run in the ninth enabled the Dodgers to set a record for playing seven consecutive one-run games to open the season. A few minutes later in San Diego, the Padres, who played their first four here against the Dodgers, tied the record with a 7-6 win over Cincinnati. The Dodgers play at San Diego tonight.

Sunday’s victory gave the Dodgers a 3-4 start following two extra-inning games in which the bullpen was unable to stop the Giants, an enthusiastic bunch under new Manager Roger Craig.

Because of the failures of his relief corps, it was with trepidation that Manager Tommy Lasorda hurried to the mound in the ninth when Hershiser, holding out the second finger of his pitching hand, summoned trainer Bill Buhler out of the dugout. The Dodgers, thanks to Stubbs’ two-run home run in the seventh, had a 3-1 lead and the count was 1 and 2 on the lead-off batter, former Dodger Candy Maldonado.

“A blister that developed early in the game finally burst,” Hershiser said.

“The trainer cut the skin away. I didn’t want to come out, but it hurt when I tried to throw a curve. I stuck with the fastball and finally got out of the inning.”

Maldonado hit a high chopper to third and beat it out. When Jeffrey Leonard, who hit the home run in the 11th that beat the Dodgers Saturday night was at bat with a 2-2 count, Hershiser again called time. Buhler and Lasorda, as well as Hershiser’s teammates, surrounded him. After a couple of warmups, Hershiser stayed out there.

When Leonard walked, it became nervous time once again. Even the still prevalent wave was forgotten. Instead of a wave, a murmur swept the stands. Was this another late-inning fiasco? Just the night before Fernando Valenzuela had been forced out after eight innings when his shoulder stiffened and the Dodger bullpen blew the lead.

Even though the next two hitters hit long flies to right that brought Maldonado around with the second Giant run, there was a sigh of relief. Hershiser was an out away from victory. But pinch-hitter Joel Youngblood brought back the tension with a single to left. Gulden, who drove in the winning run Friday night, brought the suspense down to the wire. He bounced the ball to Steve Sax. Sax, as has been widely chronicled, doesn’t always make the good throw to first. This time he did and the Dodgers hit the road in good spirits.

Before pulling out another hard-earned win, the Dodgers managed to give up another unearned run and increase their major league-leading error total to 13 in just seven games. But Hershiser wasn’t about to fault the man who made the errors, Mike Scioscia, who made two wild throws to second in the wild fourth inning.

“Mike Scioscia is just fantastic,” Hershiser said. “I haven’t been around long enough to know, but they tell me he is the best there ever was at blocking the plate. I know without his play on Chili Davis in the fourth, I probably wouldn’t have been around for the finish.

“I’ll tell you, he is something else. I was backing up the play and I wanted to get out of there.”

Davis singled to open the fourth inning for the Giants. Leonard hit a fly ball to left-center and it fell between Stubbs and center fielder Ken Landreaux for a double. It appeared that Stubbs never saw the ball and Landreaux, who has been having his problems defensively, hesitated and the ball bounced to the wall.

Landreaux retrieved the ball and fired to shortstop Mariano Duncan, who wheeled and threw to the plate. Scioscia had just caught the ball when Davis, trying to score from first, crashed into him. Instead of sliding, Davis tried to bowl over the Dodgers’ rugged catcher. He should have known that Scioscia doesn’t drop the ball in that situation and neither does he take the worst of any collision. It was Davis, nursing a sore shoulder, who left the game in favor of Maldonado.

The Giant-Dodger rivalry has often been hot and there were a couple of incidents early in this one. When Hershiser took the mound at the start of the second inning, plate umpire Doug Harvey came out to examine the ball. Hershiser’s first pitch was behind the first batter, Leonard. In the third, Scott Garrelts threw one behind Hershiser, who just laughed.

“I was expecting it,” Hershiser said. “My pitch just got away from me. It wasn’t intentional. I knew it was so flagrant I would get one behind me. That was the end of it.”

Hershiser said it was the first time he ever developed a blister. He said he thought it happened because he threw more between starts than usual.

“It probably started when I warmed up Friday night,” he said. “If the game had gone to the 13th inning I would have pitched. It started early in the game, but until it burst in the ninth, there was no problem.”

Garrelts, the Giants’ bullpen ace last season, matched Hershiser through six innings in his second start. An error by shortstop Jose Uribe gave Duncan a life to open the seventh. He stole second, then moved to third on a fly to right. With the go-ahead run on third and one out, Craig elected to pitch to Stubbs, instead of walking him to try for a double play with Mike Marshall up next. Marshall’s towering homer in the fourth had accounted for the Dodger run. Moreover, Garrelts had struck Stubbs out twice.

Among other things, Hershiser slowed down hot-hitting rookie, Will Clark. Clark, who raised his average to .421 for a time Saturday night when he reached Valenzuela for three consecutive hits, struck out three times and went 0-for-4.

Hitless in his last seven times at bat, Clark is now at .308.