Vande Berg Latest Culprit in Dodgers’ 11-Inning Loss

Ed Vande Berg, sitting hunched over in front of his locker in the visitors’ clubhouse here Monday night, looked much smaller than a man listed at 6-foot-2, 180 pounds.

The latest crushing Dodger loss had fallen upon his shoulders, and for the moment, Vande Berg resembled a sparrow under glass.

“Something has got to turn around or I’m going to go nuts,” said Vande Berg, after giving up three straight two-out hits and the winning run in the 11th inning of the Dodgers’ 6-5 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

“So,” Vande Berg added, “is (Al) Campanis.”

In acquiring Vande Berg, Campanis had hoped to fill the left-handed relief void left by Steve Howe. But Vande Berg has been less a successor to Howe than soulmate to Carlos Diaz, the first to be miscast as left-handed saver.

“Two outs, nobody on, and three base hits in a row,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said. “What can you do?”

You can lose, which is what the Dodgers have been doing with regularity, and which they did again Monday, despite rallying from two runs down in the eighth and despite a rare defensive gem from Ken Landreaux, who sent the game into extra innings with a diving catch on Dave Parker.

They’ve lost five games in a row, 9 of their last 10, and 16 times in 27 games for the month of June.

Another loss to Cincinnati tonight, and the Dodgers will replace the Reds in last place in the National League West. It has been seven years since the Dodgers have dipped that low this far into the summer.

“It will be an honor and a pleasure to get out of the basement for a spell,” said Pete Rose, whose two-run single was the capper to a four-run seventh inning that was made possible by first baseman Enos Cabell’s wild throw to the plate.

With the bases loaded and Orel Hershiser clinging to a 3-1 lead (he had allowed just two hits in the first six innings, one a solo home run by Buddy Bell in the second), the Dodgers could have used a slick play.

That’s what they got, but not the kind they had in mind. A light rain that had been falling intermittently started to come down harder, and when Cabell grabbed Eddie Milner’s chopper, his throw to the plate behaved with the whim of a spitter, winding up in the photographers’ well next to the Dodger dugout.

“The rain came at the right time,” said a grinning Rose, who followed Cabell’s two-run miscue with a line single over the head of drawn-in shortstop Craig Shipley.

“Usually the infield doesn’t get real wet, but that ball had to be.”

Cabell acknowledged that there was more than perspiration on his hands when he aimed homeward. But he didn’t wipe those hands of responsibility.

“Sure it was wet,” he said, “but I still had to throw it, anyway.”

The Dodgers tied it in the eighth off Red reliever Ted Power, a kindred spirit to those in the troubled Dodger bullpen. Power, an ex-Dodger who had eight wins and 27 saves last season, has one win and zero saves so far in 1986, and he wasn’t going to get either Monday, as Reggie Williams doubled in one run and Shipley’s infield out scored another.

In the ninth, the Reds had a chance to win it against Ken Howell when Tracy Jones reached on an infield hit and Rose drew a full-count walk.

Parker, who had been robbed of a home run by Franklin Stubbs’ leap above Riverfront Stadium’s eight-foot wall in the sixth, sliced a line drive to left. But Landreaux, who had entered the game as a pinch-hitter, went to his knees for a sliding catch.

“I don’t know why Landreaux was over there,” the left-handed hitting Parker said. “I thought I was a pull hitter.

“And the other guy (Stubbs) is a first baseman. But such is life. The harder I hit the son-of-the-gun, the worse it got.”

But Parker still had one bullet left, which he spent in the 11th after pinch-hitter Tony Perez--rumored, at age 44, to be playing his last week for the Reds--lined a single off Vande Berg.

Parker swung badly and missed at Vande Berg’s first pitch but jumped on the next, lining a double into the left-field corner that probably would have scored anyone but the ponderous Perez.

“I tried something different and stupid,” Vande Berg said. “I tried to drop down and throw a sidearm fastball. But if you do that, you have to make sure it’s away, and it wasn’t.”

Bo Diaz then made sure he hit one far enough to let Perez stroll in--a 400-foot single that reached the center-field wall on a short hop.

Dodger Notes Tom Lasorda was incensed about a call by third-base umpire Bob Engel, who ruled that Steve Sax was out at third attempting to stretch a double into a triple with two out in the top of the 11th. Sax had attempted to take an extra base when right fielder Dave Parker slipped and fell, but Engel ruled that Ron Oester’s relay beat Sax, who had to be restrained by coach Joey Amalfitano and Lasorda. “If (Sax) was out, then I’d better get a new job,” Lasorda said. “That’s one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen, I’ll tell you that. I never say anything about it (umpiring), but that was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen.” . . . Pete Rose said he was yelling at Oester to hold the ball on the play. “I’d forgotten how great an arm he has.” . . . Red third baseman Buddy Bell made a half-dozen outstanding fielding plays. “He doesn’t have a basement full of Golden Gloves for nothing,” Rose said. “One time, Bill Russell said, ‘Who was that man?’ and I said, ‘That’s three guys down there.’ ” . . . The last time the Dodgers found themselves alone in last place this late in a season was June 25, 1979. They eventually finished third with a 79-83 record, 11 1/2 games out of first. . . . Jerry Reuss is getting dropped from the rotation again in favor of Alejandro Pena, who will make his first start this season on Wednesday. Mariano Duncan (ankle) and Mike Marshall (back), remained out of the lineup.