Darryl Does Fine at Ravine : Crenshaw Product Breaks His Slump Against Dodgers

Darryl Strawberry broke an 0-for-24 slump, the worst he has had since his rookie season, with two hits, including a home run, and three runs batted in as the New York Mets opened a nine-game swing through California by beating the Dodgers, 5-4, Monday night.

Nothing like a little home cooking, right?

Wrong.

In this case, that’s nothing more than a bad cliche. Nice to be back home, yes, but Dodger Stadium, and the Dodgers in general, have never been particularly hospitable to Strawberry or to any grand plans he might have.

He turned pro in 1980 as the nation’s No. 1 draft choice after hitting a home run in his last Crenshaw High School at-bat in the City championship game at Dodger Stadium. But he has had little success there since.

In his career against the Dodgers, he has a .194 average in 98 appearances with 2 home runs and 8 runs batted in--and both homers and all but three of the RBIs came last season.

The problem may have been mental as much as anything, he said--pressing to make good in front of the hometown fans.

But how would that explain this season? The ninth-best RBI man in the National League coming into the game (62), the fourth-best in game-winning hits (10) and the seventh-best in slugging percentage (.488), Strawberry was hitting all of .182 against the Dodgers.

Monday night was something else again. A first-inning single to right field off Orel Hershiser accounted for the game’s first run, and he went from first to third himself on a shallow single to right by Danny Heep. He grounded out in the third.

But he was up again in the fifth, with Keith Hernandez on first base. Strawberry worked Hershiser to a 2-and-1 count, got a high changeup on the outside part of the plate, extended his arms and drove the ball 10 rows up into the left-field bleachers. The opposite-field homer gave the Mets a 5-0 lead and turned out to the the game-winning RBI.

“He’s got great dead-center power and to all fields,” Hernandez said. “He can leave any yard with the opposite field. He just has to realize that. Everyone gets in a slump, and he just tries to pull the ball when he’s in a slump.

“He’s so strong up the middle when he doesn’t try to pull. You should only pull when you get a pitch to pull. But he is a great player going the opposite way.”

It may have been a chat he had with Manager Davey Johnson between games of the Mets’ doubleheader Sunday with the St. Louis Cardinals that helped Strawberry. Or it may be that he simply played his way out of the slump. All Strawberry knows is that it had to end sooner or later.

“I can only be held down so long,” he said. “When I get my confidence going, that’s the thing.

“I was having a lot of bad luck. I couldn’t buy a hit. Long drives right at people, that sort of thing. I was hitting the ball well.”

Now, it appears, everything is going in the right direction.

“And I’m just starting,” he said. “It’s only the first day.”

Welcome home.