Dodgers Out of Rut, Lose by 3 : One-Run Defeats Suddenly in Past as Braves Win, 6-3

Mention Freud to Tom Lasorda and he’ll probably throw you out of his office.

Mention Jung and he’ll think you’re talking about Cy, the Hall of Fame pitcher.

But after the Dodgers’ fourth straight loss, 6-3 to the Braves before a crowd of 28,181 Friday night at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, even Lasorda admitted that a little therapy might be in order.

Especially after someone asked the Dodger manager if it felt any different to lose by three runs than by one. The Dodgers had lost by one run in seven of their previous 10 games.

In September, such a question might have produced a primal scream. In April, although the Dodgers are off to their worst start (3-8) since 1976, Walter Alston’s last year as manager, Lasorda struggled for a smile, albeit a painful one.

“I’ll have to check with my analyst,” he said.

But before half of Beverly Hills could clear its couches for him, Lasorda announced he already has a shrink of sorts: Jim Muhe, the visiting clubhouse man at Dodger Stadium.

Muhe is a good listener, keeps his mouth shut and doesn’t charge $100 an hour.

“Aw, don’t write that,” Lasorda said. “They’ll think I’m going crazy. I’m just trying to forget my problems.”

Amnesia might help. The Braves didn’t help, however, even though they came into the game with a 2-5 record and had won just 22 of their last 69 meetings with the Dodgers dating back to 1982.

And neither did Fernando Valenzuela, who in his first loss of the season gave up two-run home runs to Dale Murphy (in a three-run first inning) and Bob Horner.

“When you’re on a losing streak, the guy you want out there is the guy we had out there,” Lasorda said of Valenzuela.

That, of course, is usually the case. But not here. Against the Braves at Dodger Stadium, Valenzuela is 6-0 with a 2.88 earned-run average. Here, he is a .500 pitcher (5-5) with a 5.80 ERA.

And anywhere, it appears, Horner hits Valenzuela--.455 in his career (20 for 44), with five home runs. Horner hadn’t hit anybody else this season--he came into the game hitless in his first 21 times at bat--but he hit Valenzuela. There was a broken-bat single in the first inning and the home run, which bounced off the top of the fence in left, in the third.

“I’ve tried everything,” Valenzuela said. “His first at-bat, I threw him a screwball low, and he swung good. Then I throw him a fastball, and he broke his bat, but still a base hit. I try to come again with a fastball in, and he hit the ball far.

“Curveball, fastball, screwball, everything.”

The Dodgers, meanwhile, could do virtually nothing with Brave starter David Palmer, a marvel of modern medicine who has been on the disabled list in each of the last six seasons.

Palmer has had two elbow operations, including the Tommy John grafting treatment, and missed two entire seasons, 1981 and 1983. Before that period, he had knee surgery, and after that period, he had shoulder trouble.

The Montreal Expos, perhaps tired of paying Palmer’s doctor bills, let him go as a free agent. The Braves signed him, and Friday night, Palmer displayed a surgeon’s touch.

The right-hander gave up a bases-empty, 400-foot home run to Mike Marshall in the fourth, a run on Greg Brock’s single in the sixth and another run in the seventh when Mariano Duncan came all the way around from first on Ken Landreaux’s line drive that first baseman Horner deflected in self-defense. Horner was charged with an error for his effort.

It could be that Duncan--who ran through coach Joe Amalfitano’s stop sign--still was dizzy from being run over by left fielder Franklin Stubbs after the shortstop caught Ken Oberkfell’s foul fly in the first.

“Stubby called it, but I don’t know if Snake (Duncan) heard him or not,” said third baseman Enos Cabell, who was the first Dodger to arrive at the scene and also the first to clear out, showing a veteran’s sense of self-preservation.

Duncan said he didn’t hear Stubbs call him off the ball, and Stubbs said he didn’t see the shortstop until after he had leveled him.

The Braves scored their third run on the play, Horner tagging from third. When Terry Harper tried to advance from first to third, the woozy Duncan, regaining his feet, saw what was happening and lifted his arm to throw, only to drop his head. Cabell snatched the ball out of his hand and fired to Bill Russell, who had sprinted from second to third to make the tag on Harper.

Another anxious scene followed, much like the one in Vero Beach, Fla., when Pedro Guerrero blew out his knee: Lasorda, trainer Charlie Strasser and teammates all gathered around the fallen Duncan.

But when the second inning started, Duncan was back at his position.

“I don’t want to be hurt,” Duncan said. “We’re having bad luck right now, but I don’t want to get out of the lineup. Never. Even though I know I’m not hitting the ball too well.”

He’s not alone. So far, the Dodgers know only one way to score, and that’s one run at a time, if at all.

They haven’t scored more than one run in an inning since Stubbs’ two-run homer in the seventh inning last Sunday. That’s 42 innings ago. In the 106 innings they’ve played so far, they’ve scored two or more runs just six times.

Six of the players in Friday’s starting lineup are hitting below .215: Marshall (.214), Brock (.205), Mike Scioscia (.194), Duncan (.163), Russell (.150) and Cabell (.000).

“Usually I start fast,” said Cabell, now 0 for 11 after going hitless in four trips, twice with inning-ending outs with two men on base. “It must be contagious.

“At least, we played a little bit better than we have been before. The guys were a little looser.

“Nobody’s going to give us anything. We won last year, and nobody else cares if Pete (Guerrero) is here or not.”

Not even Tom Lasorda’s analyst.

Dodger Notes

With two more errors Friday night, the Dodger total is 19 in 11 games. The miscues came on successive plays in the fifth inning and led to the Braves’ final run, Mariano Duncan making his seventh error on Rafael Ramirez’s grounder and Ken Landreaux kicking Dale Murphy’s single for his third. . . . Greg Brock’s double in the second inning was his first extra-base hit of the season . . . Bob Horner can offer no explanation for his .455 batting average against Fernando Valenzuela. “It could be one of a hundred things,” he said. “For some reason, I see the ball well against him and hit him well.” . . . Horner, on the Braves’ hopes of contending in the West after losing 96 games in 1985: “We need to play better at home. You don’t win a division without putting up some good numbers at home. And we’ve been way below .500 the last two, three years.” The Braves had the worst home record in baseball the last two years (70-92). . . . Valenzuela’s wife, Linda, gave birth to the couple’s third child and first daughter, also named Linda, at 1:07 a.m. Friday. The baby was born prematurely, but mother and daughter were reported to be doing well. Valenzuela planned to return home this morning and rejoin the team in San Francisco Monday. The couple has two sons, Fernando Jr., 3, and Ricardo, 2. . . . The Dodgers were the only team in the majors last season not to lose more than three consecutive games on the road. They’ve lost four in a row already this season. . . . Bill Madlock received treatment for a sore muscle near his left hip and did not take batting practice before the game. Steve Sax (bruised heel) pinch-hit, flying to shallow center, but said he wasn’t close to being ready. . . . Reliever Carlos Diaz was scheduled to undergo minor surgery to lance a boil from his buttocks. Diaz also was listed as day-to-day. . . . With three at-bats, Bill Russell moved past Jim Gilliam into fourth place on the all-time Dodger list for career at-bats. Russell has 7,119, behind Zack Wheat (8,859), Pee Wee Reese (8,058) and Willie Davis (7,495). . . . Why Ted Turner will never be mistaken for Peter O’Malley: The owner of the Braves is scheduled to appear on “60 Minutes” on CBS Sunday, on “Larry King Live” on CNN Monday and on the “Tonight Show” on NBC Thursday. . . . Only the Chicago Cubs, who were batting .181 before being shut out Friday, had a lower team batting average than the Dodgers’ .216 coming into the game . . . Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, a good friend of Atlanta Hawks Coach Mike Fratello, visited the Hawk dressing room after the team’s playoff-opening win over the Detroit Pistons. “I guess the NBA’s rules are different,” one observer cracked, alluding to baseball’s prohibition of clubhouse visitors. . . . The Dodgers have just one pinch-hit, by Dave Anderson, in 17 attempts this season.