Dodgers Enter June in Sort of a Swoon After 4-0 Loss

Manager Tom Lasorda’s plan was to give his bullpen the night off Saturday, but something must have been lost in the translation. It was the Dodger offense that didn’t show up and reliever Ed Vande Berg who got rocked for three runs in a 4-0 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The defeat put the Dodgers in the position of having to win their next four games to return home with an above-.500 trip. They’re 1-4 on the trip, 23-26 overall and 5 1/2 games out of first place, a worse position than last season, when at this point they were one game below .500 at 23-24 and 4 1/2 games out.

And this June, the Dodgers won’t have Pedro Guerrero bustin’ out all over with a record 15 home runs.

What they had on the last day of May was simply a bust, especially in the eighth inning, when it was still a 1-0 game. Tony Pena’s run-scoring single off Rick Honeycutt in the sixth had accounted for the only run.

Ex-Angel Bob Kipper, who had pitched out of a two-on, one-out situation in the seventh, gave up a single to Steve Sax to open the eighth, then Enos Cabell banged a ball high off the plate that landed among three Pirates for an infield hit.

Pirate Manager Jim Leyland summoned Bob Walk to replace Kipper, and Lasorda put on the hit-and-run for Bill Madlock, who fouled off the first pitch.

“Saxie had that base stolen easy, too,” Lasorda said.

Time for a different strategy: Lasorda ordered cleanup batter Madlock to bunt, even though he knew that it would take the bat out of the hands of Mike Marshall, who came into the game with a 16-game hitting streak.

“Normally I wouldn’t do it, but we haven’t been scoring any runs,” Lasorda said.

“I’m thinking I’ve got to get the tying run to third base and the winning run to second.

“And what would you have said if Madlock had hit into a double play? You would have been the first guys to ask why I didn’t have him bunting.”

Madlock put the bunt down, his first sacrifice of the season, and the predictable intentional walk to Marshall followed, loading the bases.

“I don’t manage,” Madlock said of the Dodger strategy. “I’m sure he wanted to keep us out of the double play. And we’ve been trying to hit-and-run with men on first and second all season.”

Lasorda sent up Ken Landreaux to bat for Cesar Cedeno, who in his last 20 games has just three runs batted in. Leyland countered with left-hander Pat Clements and got the better of the exchange when Pirate first baseman Sid Bream charged Landreaux’s chopper and beat Sax to the plate with a strong throw.

Alex Trevino, who had just one hit in eight tries with men in scoring position, grounded back to Clements, and the inning was over.

Lasorda couldn’t understand, with the go-ahead run on second, why Bream was playing up close on Landreaux.

“I was playing in because I was going to go home with anything hit,” Bream said. “That’s the chance you’ve got to take with the bases loaded and one out.

“You put yourself where you think they’re going to hit the ball.”

It can be surmised that ex-Dodger Bream didn’t mean that as a slight to Landreaux.

The Pirates broke it open off Vande Berg with three in the eighth, an inning that began when Rafael Belliard struck out on a high, outside pitch but reached first base on Trevino’s passed ball.

Bill Almon, who in the sixth had walked and scored the Pirates’ first run, hit Vande Berg’s next pitch over the wall in left. Three more singles and another run followed, while no one stirred in the Dodger bullpen.

“I checked that out,” Vande Berg said. “There was nothing they could do but have me out there. They had to play for tomorrow.”

For the Dodgers on June 1, reviving some yesterdays would be infinitely preferable.

Dodger Notes Losing pitcher Rick Honeycutt gave up four hits and four walks in six innings in his first start since May 7. He said that walking Bill Almon to open the sixth after having him 0-and-2 was “the key” to the inning. Almon advanced on two infield outs and scored on Tony Pena’s single on a 3-and-1 pitch. “I don’t think I gave him a down-the-chuter,” Honeycutt said. “It was a sinker down on the outside third of the plate, and he hit it up the middle.” . . . With his sixth-inning double, Steve Sax now has as many extra-base hits (14) in 45 games as he had in 136 games last season. Sax has 10 doubles and 4 home runs; in ‘85, he had 8 doubles, 1 home run and 4 triples. . . . Bill Madlock has been booed loudly on his return to Pittsburgh, where he played 7 1/2 seasons before being traded to the Dodgers last August. “You get used to it,” Madlock said. “I’ve never been booed as much before I came to the Dodgers. We get booed wherever we go. I am a little surprised, though. I was the only Pirate who lived in the city, I did charity work. People overlook that type of stuff. When other guys left here--(Dave) Parker, (John) Candelaria, (Dale) Berra--they ripped the team, the organization, the town. I just said they had to do what they had to do. If (George) Hendrick had given an interview, it would have been a rip, too.”