Dodgers Drop Reds Into Tie for First Place, 1-0 : Leary Drives In the Only Run of the Game, and Young Puts Out Rally in Ninth

The contenders played pretenders again, and vice versa, Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium, where the Cincinnati Reds lost to the Dodgers, 1-0, and fell into a tie for first place in the National League West with the San Francisco Giants.

A crowd of 38,549 watched as Cincinnati endured still another defeat on its current West Coast trip. The Reds have scored only 13 runs in 7 games at San Francisco and Los Angeles, with San Diego still to come.

“It’s a new race now,” Cincinnati Manager Pete Rose said. “I’m ready for it.”

But is the team?

“I don’t know,” Rose said. “You’ll have to ask them. They seem to be ready before and after (a game), but I don’t know about during.”

Tim Leary, trying to give the Dodgers an answer in a search for a fifth starter, outpitched Cincinnati’s Bill Gullickson through seven innings and then gave way to Tim Crews and Matt Young, who finished off the Reds.

Crews’ best work came in the eighth, when he replaced Leary with Nick Esasky on second and Kurt Stillwell on first and no outs. The Dodger rookie, making his sixth appearance since being purchased from Albuquerque July 26, proceeded to extend his scoreless streak to 8 innings by getting Barry Larkin and Buddy Bell on ground-outs to third base after pinch-hitter Dave Collins’ sacrifice.

Crews opened the ninth by walking Eric Davis, which prompted the Dodgers to bring in Young. He went 3-0 on Kal Daniels, then got Daniels to hit into a double play, the fourth of the night for the Dodgers, and, with the crowd on its feet, he struck out Dave Parker.

Davis, who had scored the winning run in the Reds’ 4-3 victory Monday night after stealing second and third, wasn’t running this time, at least not on the last pitch. Young was giving him several different moves to first and, he said, may have froze Davis with his leg kick on the pitch that Daniels hit.

Davis saw it another way: “He (Young) was quick-pitching me.”

Leary (3-7) threw 7-plus innings and allowed just 5 hits and 3 walks in gaining his first win since July 27. All he did beyond that was drive in the game-winning run in the fifth inning.

“I wanted to go as hard as I could for as long as I could,” Leary said, “I got a little tired in the eighth. But we had a good defense and some heavy air. A few of those balls might have gone a long way in Cincinnati.

“Earlier in the year, I pitched against them and did OK. I got a no-decision. And then I got beat in Cincinnati. I figured I was due.”

Due or not, the way Leary threw had nothing to do with the law of averages.

“He pitched a hell of a game, didn’t he,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said. “All three of those guys. . . . When you shut out that ball club, you’re doing a hell of a job.”

The Reds, who are batting .178 in the seven games in California, began the night knowing that a loss would drop them into a tie with the Giants, who beat the Houston Astros, 8-1, in a day game at Candlestick Park.

Cincinnati responded by putting a runner on base in each of the first two innings and three of the first four, but the Dodgers came back with an answer of their own: Three double plays, one when Bell was thrown out trying to steal second after Davis had struck out, and another on Parker’s routine 4-6-3 grounder that also erased Daniels.

That was followed by the most unusual, in the fourth inning. With one out, Davis flied to Ken Landreaux in right field, and Larkin, aboard with a single, returned to first just ahead of Landreaux’s throw.

But before Leary’s next pitch, Larkin was called out on a Dodger appeal that he failed to re-tag second after rounding the base on the fly ball. The putout went 9-3-1-6, and credit Steve Sax with a good decoy on Larkin at second.

Leary, who took a five-game losing streak as a starter into the game, had the 1-0 lead because of his own single in the fifth inning that drove in Mike Scioscia from second base. Scioscia’s single gave him 10 hits in 12 games.

Gullickson was pitching well himself, allowing the Dodgers the 1 unearned run, 4 hits--2 each by Leary and Scioscia--and 2 walks in 7 innings. In four innings, he faced only three batters.

It was a good showing from the Reds’ standpoint because, after going a combined 7-2 in April and May, Gullickson had lost 4 of his last 5 starts coming in and surrendered a total of 15 runs in the last 3.

The Dodgers, who finished with six hits and their first 1-0 victory of the season, trail the Reds and Giants by seven games after winning two straight from Cincinnati. With one more game in the series and a visit to San Francisco coming up, they could turn into contenders, too.

“I know we’re still in it,” said Leary, who matched his longest outing of the year and raised his batting average to .375 (6 for 16). “Believe me, we’re still in it. We can get on a roll the next five or six games.”

On this night, no one would argue with Leary.

Dodger Notes

Mike Marshall will be examined today and should get the plaster splint removed from his sprained left wrist, but what happens next remains to be seen. “When they take it off tomorrow, I’ll pick up a bat and see how it feels,” he said before Wednesday’s game. “ . . . I know we’re in a pickle with all the guys hurt, so that it was unfortunate timing. But there’s nothing I can do about it.” Marshall said he hurt ligaments in the wrist during batting practice Monday while trying to compensate for his injury from Sunday’s game, a bruised left ankle. As it turned out, he overcompensated and was swinging awkwardly. The ankle is strong again, and he is expected to take batting practice Saturday at San Francisco. . . . Jeff Hamilton will be lost for approximately two weeks with a sprained left ankle. . . . Dave Anderson, who left Tuesday’s game after straining his left hamstring while running to first base, is expected to be out 7 to 10 days. . . . Alejandro Pena and Brad Havens, two injured pitchers, will both throw on the sidelines today. . . . Brad Wellman, on the 15-day disabled list with a lacerated right cornea, wore his contact lens for three hours and is improving.

How bad are things going injury-wise for the Dodgers? They lost Phil Garner for Wednesday’s game with bruised ribs. The accident happened when Garner slipped and hit the end of a Jacuzzi at home earlier in the day. . . . Effective today, the Dodgers will recall Craig Shipley, who played 12 games in the majors last season, from the Double-A team at San Antonio, where he was hitting .246 in 32 games. He has also spent time in Triple-A at Albuquerque this year. More roster moves will come today. . . . Shortstop Mariano Duncan made his first start for the Dodgers since Aug. 5.

The Dodgers’ four stolen bases in Tuesday night’s 7-2 win is a season high. . . . Cincinnati pitcher Mario Soto takes another step in his attempted comeback Saturday with a move up from Sarasota (Fla.) of the Rookie League, where he made two starts, to Triple-A Nashville. Soto, an 18-game winner in 1984, was on the disabled list three times last season and eventually had arthroscopic surgery on his right (throwing) shoulder Aug. 23. He was reactivated in April, only to come up with a slight tear in a muscle in the shoulder, which sidelined him again. . . . Orel Hershiser (12-10) will face Tom Browning (5-9) in today’s 1:05 p.m. game, the last of the home stand. The Dodgers then leave on their longest trip of the season, with 13 games in 13 days, including a doubleheader, in four cities. Meanwhile, the Reds will take on the San Diego Padres, the hottest team in baseball.