Dodgers Take a Long Night’s Trip to Defeat : Strawberry’s Homer Gives Mets (Yawn) Another Victory

So, the New York Mets may be 20 games better off in the standings than the Dodgers.

But what do you want, a team that wins with boring regularity, or a team that knows how to lose with imagination, living life on the edge and sometimes toppling over it?

Sure, on Roosevelt Avenue in Queens they’ll be talking about the Mets’ 5-4 win over the Dodgers Monday night in their usual smug fashion, dwelling on the home runs by Keith Hernandez and Darryl Strawberry off Orel Hershiser that gave the Mets a 5-0 lead and almost turned Dodger Stadium into Shea West, what with all the transplanted New Yorkers in the stands nearly drowning out Vin Scully on the transistors.

But think of what the Dodger fans in the crowd of 46,099 were able to take home with them, even if it meant tolerating a defeat that dropped their team 10 games behind the Houston Astros in the National League West.

It’s not every day that the lame walk, but there was Mike Marshall, stiff back and all, entering the game as a pinch runner.

It had been nine years since Alex Trevino, a catcher by trade, had played first base, but if he could do it in Wausau, Wis., there was no reason he couldn’t do it here. And there was Trevino effortlessly handling his only chance.

Been a while since you’ve seen a trick play? The Dodgers invented a new one, the runner-on-second, no-one-out, bunt-into-a-double-play routine, with Mike Scioscia playing the role of the bunter.

The Dodgers came up short on miracles, though: Enos Cabell said he couldn’t make the blind see, although there was nothing wrong with umpire Frank Pulli’s hearing when he ejected Cabell in the seventh.

And the Dodgers came up short on comebacks, too, even after scoring four runs before an out was recorded in the fifth. They found a way not to score in the next two innings despite three hits, two walks and a hit batsman, and they finally went out meekly after Bill Russell, who had singled in two runs earlier and is the team’s most reliable bunter, fouled off two bunt tries in the ninth, then grounded into a double play.

If that’s not entertainment--3 hours and 23 minutes worth, in fact--Hollywood’s in big trouble.

Hershiser, curiously, knew he was out of it even before he took the mound. Even the notion of facing baseball’s glamour team on national TV couldn’t inspire the Dodger right-hander.

“I felt almost like I had jet lag,” said Hershiser, whose one-hour flight home from San Francisco Sunday night could hardly compare with the coast-to-coast trip that brought the Mets into L.A. not much before sunrise Monday morning.

“I tried to get excited, I tried to pump up, but it’s like I felt the doldrums, the blahs. I still kind of feel that way.”

Hershiser certainly didn’t feel any better after giving up two home runs in a game for the first time in his big league career.

The Mets had every reason to feel the same way, especially after playing six games in four days back in New York, then boarding their red-eye flight here.

“It’s not really that much fun,” said Strawberry, who had been in an 0-for-24 slump until his first-inning RBI single, which he complemented with his 17th home run with Hernandez aboard in the fifth.

“We were kind of tired when we got in. But we pulled it off, and that’s what’s important.”

And that’s what isn’t surprising about the Mets, according to Marshall, who had missed a week because of his back but pinch-ran in the seventh, about the time Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda began to exhaust his bench.

“They’re almost 40 games above .500 because they’re a great club,” Marshall said. “The key to their team is depth. They’re so deep they have a second eight that can play. Not too many teams have that.”

Lasorda, of course, has been forced to work in far shallower waters but appeared to have a shot when singles by rookies Jose Gonzalez and Jeff Hamilton touched off the fifth-inning uprising against Met starter Bob Ojeda.

In the sixth, however, Reggie Williams was caught stealing after his leadoff single, and a subsequent walk to Len Matuszek and an infield hit by Steve Sax amounted to nothing.

In the seventh, Bill Madlock was hit by a pitch with one out. With a 1-and-0 count to Cabell, Madlock broke for second on a hit-and-run, but Doug Sisk’s pitch nearly hit Cabell, giving him no chance to swing, and Madlock was an easy out at second.

To Cabell’s amazement, first-base umpire Pulli ruled that Cabell had come around with his bat while ducking out of the way, making it a strike. Cabell saved his most pointed protest until after arriving at first base on an infield hit, whereupon Pulli immediately threw him out of the game.

“He wasn’t watching the game, he couldn’t have been watching,” Cabell said. “Everybody else saw it.”

So what did he say to Pulli.

“I told him he was the nicest umpire in the big leagues,” Cabell said. “He didn’t like that.”

Russell liked things even less in the ninth after Mariano Duncan had singled off Met reliever Jesse Orosco for his third hit of the game.

Twice, Russell tried to bunt, both times fouling off pitches by reliever Roger McDowell. The double play followed, Madlock struck out, and McDowell had his 13th save.

“He throws a good sinker,” Russell said, “and I bunted on top of the ball. That’s how it came out. I just didn’t do it.”

But wasn’t it fun while it lasted?

Dodger Notes Mike Marshall hadn’t played in a week because of a strained back and didn’t take batting practice before Monday’s game, but he was sent in to run for Enos Cabell after Cabell was ejected. Marshall remained in the game in right field but did not bat. “I’ve been available in an emergency all along,” Marshall said. “Heck, I’m a body, I can go out and do a lot of things. The only thing I really can’t do is drive the ball at the plate.” . . . Dodger reliever Tom Niedenfuer strained a hamstring in his right leg while pitching in the eighth inning but said he was hopeful he’d be out only a couple of days. . . . Alex Trevino, who played first base after Cabell was ejected, said he played the position in winter ball five years ago. He also played it in the minors at Wausau, Wis., in 1977. . . . Alejandro Pena, who hadn’t pitched since a 5-1 defeat in his last start, Aug. 8 at Cincinnati, lasted three batters in his first relief appearance since June 24. Pena gave up a hit, a sacrifice and a walk before Manager Tom Lasorda pulled him in the sixth. . . . Ed Vande Berg, buried for a while in the Dodger bullpen, has not allowed an earned run in his last eight outings, spanning 8 innings. Vande Berg, who had been relegated to a mopup role, entered the game with runners on first and second and one out in the sixth. He got a scare when Len Dykstra lined to right-fielder Reggie Williams on the warning track but then struck out Wally Backman on a called third strike to end the inning. . . . True to his word, Niedenfuer did not take any retaliatory action toward Darryl Strawberry--the Met player who allegedly scratched Niedenfuer’s face during a brawl in a game in New York last May--when they faced each other in the seventh inning Monday. Strawberry grounded out to second.