With Guerrero Out, Dodgers Can’t Match a Dose of Dawson, 5-1

After spending most of Thursday night either sequestered in the trainer’s room nursing tendinitis in his right knee or unassumingly sitting on the bench, Pedro Guerrero was asked to give one viewer’s opinion of the Dodgers’ 5-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs.

“We didn’t hit, that’s all,” Guerrero said. “The game is over now. There is nothing you can do about it.”

Perhaps Guerrero would have been the only person wearing a Dodger uniform who could have done something about the Dodgers’ sudden and severe offensive funk. But Guerrero, hitting .371 with 15 runs batted in, had injured his knee in the seventh inning of Wednesday night’s game and was unable to try for a third straight 3-hit game against Cub pitching.

As a result, the Dodgers managed only 5 hits and stranded 9 runners against starter Calvin Schiraldi and reliever Frank DiPino, whose pitching helped the Cubs take two of three games in this series.

Whenever Guerrero cannot play--and this was the first game he has missed this season--the Dodgers are weakened. Add that to the loss of center fielder John Shelby, on the disabled list with a strained abdominal muscle, and Manager Tom Lasorda’s so-called “Awesome Fivesome” was reduced to the “Mediocre Trio.”

So, while the Dodgers struggled all night, the Cubs received all the offense they would need from Andre Dawson, whose 2-run triple in the sixth inning off Dodger starter Tim Belcher helped propel the Cubs to a 4-run inning and send many in the crowd of 29,509 at Dodger Stadium home early.

Dawson, who probably would be called “Awesome Dawson” if he played for Lasorda, is as important to the Cubs as Guerrero is to the Dodgers. Which is to say, he is the key to the offense. Dawson’s triple broke a scoreless tie and resulted in Belcher’s departure.

Belcher, who struck out a career high 8 batters and allowed only 3 hits in 5 inning, was charged with 3 runs. Relievers Brad Havens and Brian Holton gave up one run each.

The win went to Schiraldi (1-2), while DiPino earned his first save with 3 scoreless innings of relief.

The Cubs certainly gave the Dodgers plenty of chances to score. They made three errors, two of which led to the Dodgers’ lone run in the sixth. Three times, they advanced runners to third, only to leave them stranded.

Was Guerrero missed?

“You know the answer to that,” Lasorda said. “Pete means an awful lot to our offense. When he’s not in there, it makes it tougher.”

It’s not as if Guerrero has knocked in all the Dodgers’ runs this season. Before Thursday night, even players such as Alfredo Griffin and Kirk Gibson, both struggling at the plate, have been productive with runners in scoring position.

On this night, however, Gibson and Mike Marshall left Steve Sax on third base in the first; Sax left Mike Davis on third base in the second; Sax, Griffin and Gibson left Belcher on second in the fifth; and Mike Scioscia and pinch-hitter Mickey Hatcher left runners on second and third in the sixth.

“I think it’s a total coincidence,” said Scioscia when it was suggested that Guerrero’s absence caused the Dodgers’ offensive slumber. “We’ve been hitting. And it’s not like we were totally shut down tonight. We had the opportunities.”

Schiraldi, who needed four starts to notch his first win as a Cub after coming over from the Boston Red Sox in the Lee Smith trade, gave the Dodgers their best chance of the night in the sixth inning.

A 1-out walk to Davis began the Dodger threat, but it looked as if Schiraldi had escaped the jam when Franklin Stubbs bounced back to the mound for a potential inning-ending double play. Schiraldi turned and fired the ball two feet behind shortstop Shawon Dunston, enabling Davis to advance to third.

That brought up Jeff Hamilton, Guerrero’s replacement at third base. Hamilton launched a fly to deep left field. Left fielder Rafael Palmeiro, his back to the wall, appeared to have room to make the catch, but the ball bounced off his glove and hit the ground. Davis scored the Dodgers’ first run on the play, while Stubbs and Hamilton moved into scoring position.

“The air was thick tonight,” Hamilton said. “But I still thought (the ball) was going out. Then, I saw the arc of it, and I said to myself, ‘Oh, (no).’ ”

Cub Manager Don Zimmer probably was muttering the same thing under his breath. He immediately replaced Schiraldi with DiPino, a left-hander.

“(Schiraldi) just about took himself out,” Zimmer said. “That throw got him in trouble. This club (the Dodgers) has had a lot of trouble hitting left-handed pitching since the bell first rang. I wasn’t going to monkey around. I was going to bring in my left-hander.”

Once DiPino entered, he didn’t monkey around, either. He forced Scioscia to fly to left--too shallow for Stubbs to tag up--and pinch-hitter Hatcher to fly to right.

The Cubs added their fifth run in the seventh inning on squeeze play executed by Ryne Sandberg after reserve shortstop Angel Salazar opened the inning with a triple against Holton. The three runs scored after Dawson’s blast really weren’t necessary, since the Dodger offense was dormant without Guerrero.

Belcher said he felt he had to pitch extra carefully in the middle innings, because it was a scoreless tie. His hesitancy to mix his pitches resulted in Dawson’s slicing triple to right. “If I was going to get beat, I wanted it to be with my best pitch--the fastball,” Belcher said. “I was reluctant to go in and throw the slider. I threw too many fastballs in the same spot and I paid for it.

“A 0-0 game any time is like a 1-run game in the ninth. It’s important, every inning, every pitch. Maybe I should have thrown Dawson a slider. But I didn’t.”

Instead, Belcher found himself watching the remainder of the sixth, as well as the rest of the game, from the dugout, along with Guerrero.

“I don’t know if Pete would have made much of a difference tonight, because I liked the lineup we had,” Belcher said. “Had he been in the lineup and had a couple of hits, (runners) still might have been stranded, anyway.”

Dodger Notes

Pedro Guerrero, a late scratch from Thursday night’s lineup, would not comment on the injury to his right knee, but assistant trainer Charlie Strasser said Guerrero slipped before touching the bag, then jammed his leg against it. Strasser said there was “minimal swelling” in Guerrero’s right knee, not the knee he had surgery on in 1986. . . . Pitcher Ken Howell, rehabilitating his right shoulder after off-season surgery, cleared a big hurdle Thursday when he felt no pain or stiffness in his shoulder two days after throwing. In fact, Howell was able to throw 15 minutes on the side before Thursday’s game. Howell then met with Fred Claire, the Dodgers’ executive vice president, and agreed to pitch another simulated game on Monday before any decision will be made regarding putting Howell on a 21-day rehabilitation assignment in Bakersfield. . . . John Shelby, on the disabled list with a strained abdominal muscle, ran in the outfield for the third straight day and lightly tossed a ball for the first time since the April 18 injury. . . . The Dodgers have announced the rescheduling of three games against the San Diego Padres that were rained out last week. The Dodgers will play doubleheaders June 17, June 19 and Sept. 21.