Valenzuela, Dodgers Put It All Together in 5-2 Win Over Braves

This game must have been a little difficult for Fernando Valenzuela to grasp, simply because everything went right for one of the few times this season.

His control was sharp Friday night, so he didn’t need his usual high number of pitches. The Dodger offense produced, so he could afford a few mistakes and still survive. Even the Dodger defense turned three double plays to help offset two fielding errors.

It all added up to a 5-2 Dodger win over the Atlanta Braves that left Valenzuela quite happy and a bit surprised.

It was the type of performance from Valenzuela that people took for granted in previous seasons. But it was something of an oddity in a season that Valenzuela (12-13) would like to forget.

He hit the corners with fastballs and kept his screwball down on Brave hitters. He pitched a four-hitter to collect his National League-high 11th complete game. A two-run home run by rookie Jeff Blauser prevented Valenzuela from pitching his second shutout.

And he did it all with 125 pitches. That is quite a departure from Valenzuela’s three previous starts, when he totaled nearly 500 pitches. But as a reminder of the type of season it has been, Valenzuela’s four walks Friday gave him 109, breaking Stan Williams’ 26-year-old Los Angeles Dodger season record. Williams walked 108 in 1961. The Brooklyn Dodger record is 151 by Bill Donovan in 1901.

That fact didn’t spoil an enjoyable evening for Valenzuela or his teammates before an Atlanta Fulton County Stadium crowd of 11,252. Dodger hitters pounded rookie starter Kevin Coffman for five runs on 10 hits in five innings. Had they not left 13 runners on base--10 in the first five innings--the Dodgers might have had their biggest offensive bonanza of the season.

Mike Marshall, who had gone 2 for 24 since returning from the disabled list, had three hits and three runs batted in. Rookie Ralph Bryant, making his first start since being recalled Sept. 1, also had three hits and three RBIs, including a home run off Coffman in the second inning.

But the most pleasing sight to Manager Tom Lasorda and pitching coach Ron Perranoski was Valenzuela’s return to pre-1987 form. Actually, Valenzuela has pitched well in recent appearances--three complete games in his last four starts--but he had not been in control.

Valenzuela said he had his best control of the season Friday night.

“I stayed ahead of the hitters most of the time,” he said. “All the time, when there were men on base, I tried to keep the ball down, so they would hit it on the ground. And they did.

“Some games, I know I’m wild. But most of the time, they are close pitches. I just miss the corners. That’s the way I always pitch. I go inside and outside. Tonight, I used the screwball when I was behind, and it worked.”

One of the few times a screwball failed Valenzuela ended his shutout. With two out in the seventh, the light-hitting Blauser jumped on an inside screwball and lifted it just over the left-field fence.

But Valenzuela overcame that lapse and had no difficulty in the eighth or ninth, serving up two double-play grounders.

“He’s a master,” Perranoski said. “You look at his pitches from the side, and half of them that are balls look like strikes. That’s how close they are. You like to see him like he is tonight.”

The Dodgers (59-81) also must have liked what they saw of Marshall and Bryant. Friday night, Marshall delivered a run-scoring single with the bases loaded in the first inning and a two-run, bases-loaded single off reliever Rick Mahler in the sixth.

Because teams regularly pitch around Pedro Guerrero, Marshall has many chances to produce with runners in scoring position. He failed several times in the recent Cincinnati series, which made him determine to succeed Friday. “It’s been that way the whole year,” said Marshall, who iced his chronic ailing back afterward. “They aren’t going to pitch to Pete. You aren’t always going to produce with guys on, but the way I was hitting against the Reds was different.

“It’s taken me longer to come back this time, maybe because I’ve been out longer.”

Bryant, meanwhile, has waited quite a long time to get the chance to play. He hit only .200 when the Dodgers called him up in May, but much of that was as a pinch-hitter.

“When he told me I was starting tonight, I said, ‘Who, me?”’ Bryant said, laughing. “This is my chance, and I have to make the best of it.”

Lasorda said Bryant most likely will be platooning with Mike Devereaux and Franklin Stubbs the last month of the season.

“We consider Ralph Bryant one of our finest prospects,” Lasorda said. “We’ve spent a lot of time trying to improve his hitting (making contact) and catching the ball. He has the ability to be one of the premier hitters. He’s got the power.”

Dodger Notes

Injured reliever Matt Young (sprained ligament in his left elbow) threw for 15 minutes in the bullpen with no pain. Young said he will throw a simulated game Sunday, a final test before perhaps being ready to pitch Tuesday. . . . The Dodgers’ Bob Welch (11-9) will pitch against the Braves’ Zane Smith (15-8) today. . . . Today’s game had been scheduled as the NBC “Game of the Week” to be shown in Los Angeles, but because of the number of complaints the network received, it switched to St. Louis vs. the New York Mets.