Astros and Sax Double-Team Fernando, 3-2

No one has ever admitted to seeing Fernando Valenzuela kick a dog, yell at his wife, insult a waiter or punch out a neighbor.

Normally, Valenzuela is as serene as a Monet landscape. He accepts life’s caprices with the equanimity of a Mexican Buddha.

That all ended, however, at one flash point Thursday night as Fernando the unflappable became Fernando the raging bull, his composure disintegrating about the same time the Dodgers did in a 3-2, come-from-ahead loss to the Houston Astros, who shouldn’t have the Dodgers to worry about anymore--if the Astros ever were worried, at all.

So what could possibly provoke Valenzuela to hurl first his cap, then his glove against the dugout wall in the eighth inning after the Astros had taken the torch to his two-hit shutout and sent his potential 16th win up in flames by scoring three times to wipe out a 2-0 Dodger lead?

Well, it wasn’t a what . It was a who .

Steve Sax.

The Dodger second baseman, for whom baseball is at its most difficult when it becomes a mind game, had to do some quick thinking Thursday night. Suffice to say, he did not have a stroke of inspiration, unless it was for the Astros, who turned Sax’s mental error into grist for the comeback that made Valenzuela see red.

The Astros had one run in and runners on first and third when Phil Garner hit a one-out bouncer to Sax. The ball was moving too slowly for Sax to try for the runner at the plate or to turn a conventional double play. So he did the correct thing: He tried to tag the runner, Billy Hatcher, who was headed in his direction, figuring he might still have time to throw to first and get Garner.

Only Hatcher did a smart thing, too. He put on the brakes and fell to the AstroTurf before Sax could apply the tag.

What to do?

Not what Sax did, which was to throw to first base for the out on Garner. Hatcher picked himself up and hustled into second, beating the throw by first baseman Enos Cabell. That put the winning run in scoring position, and Astro cleanup man Glenn Davis delivered, grounding a single up the middle.

There went the ballgame, followed in rapid order by Valenzuela’s cap and glove. When Cabell reached the dugout, his cap went flying, too, as well as a few choice words in Sax’s direction.

Had Hatcher pulled a sucker play on Sax?

“Whatever you call it, I don’t know,” Cabell said. “But No. 1, you don’t let the winning run go to second base. That’s all. That’s basic common sense. You learn that in the minor leagues.”

Was it possible, then, that Sax had panicked?

“Ask the guy who panicked,” Cabell said. “You said that, I didn’t.”

As far as Cabell was concerned, Valenzuela should never have been in that predicament in the first place, not if the Dodgers had turned a double play on pinch-hitter Davey Lopes after Dickie Thon opened the eighth with a single.

“It was real close, but it shouldn’t have been close at all,” Cabell said after the 40-year-old Lopes just beat Sax’s relay, a throw that Cabell thought should have had more on it than it did.

“If you don’t make the right plays at the end of the game, you end up losing close games, and we lost a game we should have won,” Cabell said. “That’s the kind of game we’ve been losing all season.”

Sax, who had combined with shortstop Bill Russell for three double plays in the first three innings, said he thought that by throwing to first to get Garner, the Dodgers would still have a chance to get Hatcher at second for a fourth double play.

“I did what I thought was right,” Sax said. “I thought we had a chance for the double play.”

Sax sat in front of his cubicle, downcast, but denied there had been a scene in the Dodger dugout at the end of the inning.

“Nobody said anything to me,” Sax said. “Nobody said anything.”

Hear no evil, see no evil. Bill Madlock, whose two-run homer off Jim Deshaies in the fifth had staked Valenzuela to his lead, was asked if he’d ever seen Valenzuela angrier.

“I’ve never seen Freddie mad,” Madlock said. “I didn’t see him today.”

And where was Madlock when Valenzuela came back to the dugout?

“I was sitting right next to him,” Madlock said. “I can’t understand him. I don’t know any Spanish. Freddie doesn’t get mad about errors, not physical ones. I’ve made many physical errors behind Freddie, and he’s never gotten mad at me.”

By the time reporters reached the Dodger clubhouse, any anger Valenzuela had for Sax was safely concealed.

“It’s part of the game,” he said, then let out a little laugh. “A little bit funny, to lose this game. Tough.”

With 47 games left, the Dodgers are now nine games behind Houston, four behind second-place San Francisco. The bottom of the division is closer in sight.

How tough a hole had they dug for themselves?

“I got nothing to say about that,” Cabell said. “I didn’t dig nothin’.”

Dodger Notes Outfielder Mike Marshall underwent three hours of tests Thursday in the Inglewood office of back specialist Dr. Robert Watkins, who concluded that Marshall has a back strain and something known as a facet joint syndrome. Watkins prescribed exercises for Marshall, who will rejoin the team tonight in San Francisco. Marshall’s playing status was listed as day-to-day. . . . Shortstop Mariano Duncan missed his fifth straight game and his second since being struck in the right calf by a line drive during batting practice. The grumbling about Duncan’s frequent absences from the lineup is growing louder in the Dodger clubhouse. “I don’t know if he can’t do anything, “ Dodger infield coach Monty Basgall said, “but he won’t do anything.” . . . Pedro Guerrero told a reporter that he doesn’t plan to come back this season. “It still bothers me a little bit,” Guerrero, who is back on the disabled list with a ruptured patellar tendon in his left knee, told Gordon Verrell of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “What I could do couldn’t get us back in it.” Guerrero continues to take batting practice with the Dodger regulars, however, and it remains to be seen whether he will resist the temptation to take a few more at-bats, especially if the Dodgers fall out of the race. . . . Kevin Bass went 0 for 2 and had his hitting streak ended at 20 games.