Braves Strike Back After Strikeouts

All that Brave bashing was great fun for the Dodgers, while it lasted. It was inevitable, however, that the Dodgers either would exhaust their allotment of early-season games against Atlanta or run out of new and creative ways of pounding the poor guys.

Sunday afternoon, before a crowd of 46,484 at Dodger Stadium, the Braves finally got their first victory of the season after losing 10 straight, a National League record for worst start. But the 3-1 victory was a struggle all the way against those local bullies, the Dodgers, who were responsible for six of those Atlanta losses.

The Braves did it with a 2-run home run by light-hitting Damaso Garcia off loser Don Sutton, and 4-hit, complete-game pitching by left-hander Zane Smith, who baffled a Dodger offense that had racked up 35 runs in the previous 6 games against the Braves.

While Brave players exchanged celebratory hugs and occasional fist-waving after the win, the Dodgers did not take the loss well.

“Big deal,” said Dodger third baseman Pedro Guerrero, sarcastically. “The season’s over, right? We aren’t going to be crying because we lost to the Braves. They have a right to win, too. Sooner or later, they were going to win one game.”

That wasn’t a given, considering the way the Braves have been playing in the season’s infancy. The Dodgers had taken full advantage of Atlanta’s numerous shortcomings, notching six of their eight wins against the worst the NL has to offer.

Sunday, however, was pay-back time for the Braves. Smith limited the Dodgers to a lone run in the third inning, and the Braves’ offense responded by nailing Sutton for two runs in the sixth thanks to Garcia’s home run.

Garcia could serve as the poster boy for the Braves’ frustration. When he stepped to the plate in the sixth, with Albert Hall on first base, Garcia was in the midst of a 1-for-37 slump. In the six games against the Dodgers, Garcia had been hitless and had hit the ball out of the infield only six times.

But Garcia launched Sutton’s 1-and-1 fastball over the fence in left-center to erase a one-run deficit and put the Braves in a position for that elusive first win. “At times like this you expect a call from the President,” Brave Manager Chuck Tanner said.

That didn’t happen. But, about a half hour after the game, Tanner did receive a call from Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda.

“I made the call to wish him a lot of luck after he left here,” Lasorda said.

Somebody should have given the Dodgers a wake-up call Sunday. They managed only four singles off Smith, the only run coming on Steve Sax’s third-inning single after Rick Dempsey had walked and reached second on a sacrifice bunt.

In the Dodgers’ four losses this season, they have scored only five runs. The Dodgers are hitting only .243 as a team.

Granted, Lasorda decided to rest Kirk Gibson and Mike Scioscia Sunday against Smith, but many of the club’s regulars are struggling at the plate. Despite his run-scoring single, Sax is in a 2-for-28 slump. John Shelby is hitting only .150, Alfredo Griffin .200, Mike Davis .250 and Gibson .244. Even Guerrero, the hottest Dodger, was 0 for 4 Sunday against Smith.

“We have a few guys who aren’t hitting right now,” Guerrero said. “You can’t expect to hit every day. I had three hits yesterday (Saturday), but today I went 0 for 4.

“Hey, we’ve been playing good. The pitchers have been doing a good job. The hitters haven’t been hitting, but we still won two of three from these guys. I hope we can win two of three wherever we go.”

Much of the credit for Sunday’s offensive slumber by the Dodgers went to Smith, who used an assortment of off-speed pitches to keep Dodger hitters off balance.

“Everything he threw was on the corners,” Dempsey said of Smith. “He was mixing it up real well. I don’t think Smith threw a pitch down the middle all day.”

The same could not be said for Sutton, who suffered his second loss despite a solid pitching effort before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the sixth.

The one fastball Sutton threw down the middle ended in disaster for the 43-year-old pitcher. Garcia, who had hit only 32 home runs in his 8-year career, deposited the ball just beyond the left-center wall for a 2-1 Atlanta lead.

“Sutton looked very good,” Dempsey said. “He just lost control for one pitch.”

Sutton was making his first home start for the Dodgers since the 1980 season. He began the game auspiciously, striking out five of the first six Brave batters he faced. He retired nine straight, before Hall’s leadoff single in the fourth.

Sutton’s early domination drew some weary head-shaking followed by finger-pointing from the Atlanta bench. Tanner, who accused Sutton of scuffing the ball last week in Atlanta, asked home plate umpire Dana DeMuth to check two balls after particularly effective Sutton pitches.

Both times, DeMuth kept the ball in play.

“The first time (in Atlanta last week), we got a couple balls that were scuffed,” Tanner said. “We looked at a couple today, but there was nothing on them. They (the umpires) aren’t going to do anything about it.”

Sutton said there was nothing he could do to get back his 1-and-1 pitch to Garcia. The home run overshadowed Sutton’s exceptional start, when he struck out Hall and Dion James in the first inning and then struck out the side--Dale Murphy, Gerald Perry and Ozzie Virgil--in the second.

“That’s probably not characteristic of my pitching,” Sutton said of his early strikeouts. “That was like a time warp or something for me.”

If that’s so, then maybe the home run Sutton allowed was a flashback to 1987, when he allowed 38 home runs in 34 starts.

“I wanted to get it out and away,” Sutton said of the pitch to Garcia. “It was right there, and he jumped all over it. I don’t care about the strikeouts. . . . I got ripped for the two-run home run and lost. That’s it.”

The Braves’ 2-1 lead entering the late innings did not appear insurmountable. They had blown leads in four of the previous six losses to the Dodgers. But the Braves added another run in the eighth inning against reliever Brian Holton, and Smith only made his teammates squirm a little in the ninth, giving up a single to Mickey Hatcher and a deep fly ball to center by Guerrero.

“We cannot win them all, right?” Guerrero said. “They’ve got to win one sometime.”

Dodger Notes

Left fielder Kirk Gibson was given the day off, not because of a strained left hamstring that he injured in Saturday’s win but because of Manager Tom Lasorda’s desire to play a few of his reserves. “I’m ready to play,” Gibson said before the game. “But he’s the manager, and he feels this is best. It’s important for guys like Hatch (Mickey Hatcher) to play, so that when he comes up in the ninth inning with a runner on, he’ll have confidence. This week, you might see Stubby (Franklin Stubbs) and (Danny) Heep get a start.” Said Hatcher: “I went up and gave Gibby a high-five. I’ve been waiting for a start.” . . . Orel Hershiser said he did not put a strain on his right elbow in his last start Friday night, although trainer Bill Buhler said Sunday that Hershiser has had some tenderness in the elbow since spring training. “It’s not strained or tender,” Hershiser said. “My elbow is fine. But I still get the treatments between starts just for precaution.” . . . Pitcher Ken Howell, rehabilitating from off-season surgery on his right shoulder, threw on the side Sunday, but the Dodgers have no plans yet to send Howell to Bakersfield on a rehabilitation assignment. . . . Don Sutton’s 5 strikeouts Sunday moved him into fourth place, ahead of Gaylord Perry, on the all-time strikeout list with 3,539. Sutton said he could not remember if, in his 23 major league seasons, he has ever struck out five of the first six batters he has faced. After the second inning, though, Sutton did not strike out another batter.

Dodger Attendance

Sunday’s attendance . . . 46,484

1987 attendance (5 dates) . . . 207,182

1988 attendance (5 dates) . . . 200,776

Decrease . . . 6,406

1988 average per date . . . 40,155