Dodgers Get Wind and Win : Giants Dealt a Blow in 9th as Their Rally Falls a Bit Short, 6-5

When Ken Howell summoned the guys with the garden tools in the ninth inning Saturday, all he wanted was a little yard work done on the mound.

But after the grounds crew had dug the Dodger reliever his hole, the San Francisco Giants, who scored four runs in the inning, nearly dug him a grave.

Before the last shovelful of dirt could be thrown on the Dodgers, however, reliever Tom Niedenfuer struck out Chili Davis to pull the Dodgers out of the crypt, 6-5, before a crowd of 43,535 at Candlestick Park.

“It always gets worse before it gets easier,” said Bill Russell, who was in left field when the wind held up what would have been a game-tying grand slam by ex-Dodger Candy Maldonado, turning it into a two-run double instead.

“It’s tough for us to win a game, no matter how many runs we have.”

The Dodgers had scored five runs in the fourth inning to take a 5-1 lead but needed a two-out, run-scoring single in the eighth by starting pitcher Bob Welch to hold off the Giants, who attempted to duplicate what the first-place Houston Astros did twice last week with late-inning comebacks.

“Believe me, I never would have wanted that (the comeback) to happen,” said Welch, when he realized his opposite-field single off Juan Berenguer was the game’s decisive hit, enabling him to run his career record to 17-2 against the Giants, 6-0 here.

Welch, who came out with one out in the ninth, one run in and two runners on, was sitting in the far corner of the Dodger dugout when Maldonado launched his bases-loaded drive.

“I thought it was gone,” Welch said.

The Giant manager, Roger Craig, sitting in the opposite dugout, was thinking the same thing.

“It was out of here until the wind knocked it down,” Craig said.

Russell, who took over in left after pinch-hitting for Greg Brock in the fourth inning and driving in the Dodgers’ fifth run with a sacrifice fly, said the ball hit by Maldonado kept drifting away from him toward left-center, where he finally caught up with it.

“I knew I had to run a long way,” Russell said. “I got to the warning track and kept going right down the warning track.”

Maldonado, who had hit a grand slam last Wednesday at Cincinnati, wound up on second after driving in the two runs that made it 6-4.

“It was a mistake,” said Howell, angry at himself for throwing an 0-and-2 pitch that Maldonado jumped on.

“I played with him for three years. You know what he can hit and can’t hit, then to serve a ball into a guy’s wheelhouse, you have to expect him to do some damage.”

Maldonado wasn’t through wreaking havoc, although this time the damage was done to the Giants. Maldonado broke for third on Dan Gladden’s grounder to short and was thrown out easily at third by shortstop Mariano Duncan.

“Other people make mistakes beside us,” said Enos Cabell, who singled twice and drove in a run while making his first start in right field.

“It’s about time somebody else made a mistake.”

Even after Maldonado was erased to take the tying run out of scoring position, the Dodgers weren’t safe. Howell walked rookie Rob Thompson after just missing with a 1-and-2 pitch.

In came Niedenfuer, who has done this number before. Last Wednesday night, he struck out Houston’s Phil Garner to save a 5-3 win for Orel Hershiser, who had taken a 5-0 lead into the ninth.

If the Dodgers had lost that one at Houston, Niedenfuer said, they would have taken a bus here. And if they’d lost this one, would the bus have been waiting to take them back to Los Angeles?

“We may have been on a boat,” Niedenfuer said with a laugh, though not specifying where that boat would have been headed.

Davis, who leads the Giants in runs batted in with 60, was 7 for 10 driving in the tying or go-ahead run in situations after the sixth inning.

“I’m glad you tell me that now, and not before the game,” Niedenfuer said.

But Davis, who has just two RBIs and seven hits in his last 11 games, went down swinging.

“Why can’t they make it a 10-inning game instead of nine?” Craig grumbled afterward, fearful that the Giants, five games out of first at the start of the day, would fall six behind the Astros. Which they did. “I thought we were going to win it. We had a good shot.”

Everybody, these days, seems to have a shot against the Dodgers. And they know it.

“I don’t know what the reason is behind it,” Cabell said. “When you go out there ahead, 6-1, you’re not supposed to have trouble winning a game.

“But we have trouble winning, no matter what the score is.”

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda did his best to win over the hostile crowd, waving his cap high over his head and blowing kisses with both hands as he walked onto the field at the start of the game.

“I killed ‘em with kindness,” Lasorda said.

And the Dodgers live to see another day.

Dodger Notes

Bob Welch was struck in the left wrist on a pitch by Giant starter Mike LaCoss in the fourth but still went 8 innings, allowing seven hits, for only his third win in his last 20 starts. Two of those wins have come against the Giants. Until the ninth, when he walked Will Clark, hit Chris Brown with a pitch and gave up an RBI single to Bob Brenly, the only run allowed by Welch came on Brenly’s homer in the second. . . . Welch’s lifetime record against the Giants (17-2), Braves (14-5), Reds (13-6), and Mets (9-4) adds up to 53-17; he’s 46-56 against the rest of the league. No active National League pitcher has more wins against the Giants than Welch. Steve Carlton, now with the Chicago White Sox, had 27 at the start of this season; Joe Niekro (New York Yankees) had 20. . . . Remember when Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, in announcing his strict rules on clubhouse access last spring, said that hangers-on, including “jewelry salesmen,” would not be welcome? Well, the first time the Dodgers were here, in April, the jewelry salesman who always had a table directly outside the clubhouses was nowhere to be seen. But he’s back now, and apparently has been for the last couple of months. . . . Mariano Duncan, who missed the last six games with first a sprained knee, then a bruised calf, was back in the lineup. Duncan had an infield hit in three trips; he also was picked off first in the eighth inning, when the Dodgers had runners on first and third with no outs. . . . Dennis Powell, a 5-1 loser Friday night, will remain in the rotation for a third straight start. The left-hander is scheduled to pitch against the Mets Wednesday in Los Angeles. Alejandro Pena, 1-2 with a 4.99 earned-run average, hasn’t pitched since a 5-1 loss to the Reds Aug. 8 at Cincinnati. . . . Only the St. Louis Cardinals, with 225, have fewer extra-base hits than the Dodgers (261). The Mets lead the league with 333 (111 home runs, 24 triples and 198 doubles). . . . Franklin Stubbs, batting .165 in his last 23 games, was benched, with Enos Cabell making his first start in right field. Cabell is hitting .433 (13 for 30) with 9 RBIs in his last nine games. “I usually hit well when the weather gets hot,” Cabell said. . . . Steve Sax had a bloop double and two-run single. . . . Giant Manager Roger Craig and Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda have been drafted to pitch an inning each in today’s old-timers’ game between the ’54 Giants and ’54 Indians.