Dodgers Win 8th in Row, Streak Up on the Astros, 7-3

The Dodgers may have taken a trip to fantasy land when they sent out Pedro Guerrero for a four-inning limp through left field Monday night.

But it was the first-place Houston Astros who tumbled into the twilight zone, and it was Fernando Valenzuela, pitching with a 5 o’clock shadow, who kept them there.

The Astros were unruffled by Guerrero’s first, abortive start of the season, but came undone during the rocky horror baseball show--a five-run seventh inning that carried the Dodgers to a 7-3 victory, their eighth straight win, before 32,182 fans in Dodger Stadium.

Dodger Bill Madlock has seen that show before, and not because he stood in line at midnight outside some theater in Hollywood.

Madlock has not only seen it but also been in it.

“I’ve seen a lot of games like this,” said Madlock, whose two-run single off Astro reliever Charlie Kerfeld broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh and helped move the third-place Dodgers within 5 1/2 games of Houston in the National League West.

“Tonight, we won the type of game we were giving away at the beginning of the season.”

Monday night’s gift came courtesy of the Astros, who took a 3-1 lead into the seventh but hand-delivered a Dodger comeback with a throwing error by catcher Alan Ashby, a fielding error by first baseman Glenn Davis and two walks.

They never recovered from the shock against Valenzuela, who won his league-high 15th game of the season and fifth game in a row while striking out 11. Eight of those strikeouts came on a called third strike.

“Five o’clock game--you never can see at 5 o’clock,” chirped Enos Cabell, who doubled in the Dodgers’ first run, hit the ball that Davis played off his shin and later scored on a squeeze bunt by Bill Russell, a more productive cleanup hitter this night than Guerrero was.

Guerrero, who had gamely pronounced himself ready for the starting lineup, struck out in his only two plate appearances. But it was Guerrero’s play afield that revealed his lack of readiness.

It became apparent to Guerrero when the first batter of the game, Bill Doran, lined a single in Guerrero’s direction.

“I was getting close to the ball,” Guerrero said, “then I made, I don’t know, kind of a funny move. I know I did something wrong, even though it didn’t bother me right away.”

Before the inning was over, Guerrero said, he felt soreness in his left leg--not below the knee, where he had ruptured his patellar tendon four months earlier--but in the upper part of the leg.

Said Dodger trainer Bill Buhler: “That’s part of the fatigue factor you have to worry about. That’s why Dr. (Frank) Jobe said three or four innings, then get him out of there.

“We’ll have to see how tomorrow is. This is new territory for us. I don’t blame (Guerrero) for being apprehensive, either. It’s got to be in the back of his mind.”

Guerrero’s tentativeness was evident for all to see in the fourth, when the Astros hit three balls his way, all for hits, and scored two runs. Billy Hatcher started it with a hanging liner for a single that Guerrero said he normally would have caught.

Ex-Dodger Davey Lopes, newly acquired from the Chicago Cubs, forced Hatcher. But Lopes then scored from first on Davis’ ground-ball double into the left-field corner that Guerrero retrieved almost as quickly as a stadium usher chasing down a beach ball. Kevin Bass lined another drive to Guerrero’s right for a run-scoring double and then took third on a wild pitch.

Valenzuela struck out Phil Garner and retired Ashby to get out of the inning without further harm, just as he did in the fifth, striking out Lopes with a run in and runners on first and third.

“But we were the ones who were in trouble,” Cabell said. “We were the ones struggling to score some runs.

“(Jim) Deshaies was pitching a great game, and they were playing better than we were.”

Deshaies, a left-hander who came to Houston last fall from the New York Yankees in a deal for Joe Niekro, had held the Dodgers to four hits until the seventh.

But Mike Scioscia led off the inning with an opposite-field single and took third on Mariano Duncan’s soft single to center. When Deshaies’ first pitch to Reggie Williams was wide, Houston Manager Hal Lanier summoned reliever Kerfeld, whose John Candy-like appearance belied his 7-1 record.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda sent Franklin Stubbs to hit for Williams, and on Kerfeld’s first pitch, Duncan broke for second. Ashby’s throw bounced through the legs of shortstop Dickie Thon, Scioscia scored and Duncan took third.

Valenzuela sacrificed Stubbs to second and Steve Sax, after fouling off four pitches in a row, walked to load the bases, one of four times Sax was on base.

Cabell then hit a sharp ground ball to first that found Davis’ shin instead of his glove, and the game was tied.

Madlock then lined a 1-and-0 pitch to center, making it 5-3, and Russell squeezed home Cabell.

Stubbs’ 20th home run, in the eighth, closed out the scoring, and Valenzuela closed out the Astros, who still hold the lease on first place. It was Lasorda who said they’re just renting first place--but the threat of an eviction notice became just a little bit more real Monday night.

The Dodgers, who have won 12 of their last 14 games, went above .500 (53-52) for the first time since the third game of the season.

“I’m not crying,” Kerfeld said. “The Dodgers are doing what we did two weeks ago, when we had our streak (Houston won seven straight).

“There’s two months left, and they’ve still got to make up 5 1/2 games.”

That’s just what Kerfeld heard from his buddies back home in Carson City, Nev., most of whom apparently are Dodger fans.

“They called me last week and said, ‘They’re going to come and get you,’ ” Kerfeld said.

That idea obviously has occurred to the Dodgers as well.

“There’s a different atmosphere around here,” Sax said. “If we keep going, we’re going to make it interesting.

“The Astros are such a good team, it’s going to be tough, but I think we’re going to make a good run for it.”

Dodger Notes

Houston had won its last five games against the Dodgers. . . . Franklin Stubbs was batting .159 in his last 12 games before hitting an eighth-inning home run Monday. . . . Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said Pedro Guerrero told him Saturday that he wanted to be in the lineup. “We have to go by what he says,” said Lasorda, who said Monday’s plan was for Guerrero to have just two at-bats, then come out. “As long as he says to me he’s OK, he’ll play. But if he tells me he’s hurting, he’s not going to play. The doctors can’t see inside his leg, and we can’t see inside his leg.” . . . Guerrero: “I felt a little funny out there.” . . . Houston reliever Charlie Kerfeld thought he had struck out Steve Sax with on a 3-and-2 pitch in the seventh. Instead, Sax walked, Enos Cabell followed with a ground ball that Glenn Davis couldn’t handle, and Bill Madlock hit a two-run single. “Boy, does that change an inning,” Kerfeld said. . . . Enos Cabell said Sax’s at-bat was the key to the inning. “He (Kerfeld) couldn’t have served up those pitches much better,” Sax said. “He threw me one on the corner, a backup slider, one on the letters, a pitch that may have been a ball that I swung at, and then ball four, a little low. He’s a good pitcher.” . . . Mike Marshall returned to the lineup after 15 days on the disabled list and was hitless in three at-bats, striking out and popping up twice.