Leary Makes Do With Two as Dodgers Blank Expos

More than a month had passed since Tim Leary last won a game, a disquieting development for the Dodgers because it had more to do with a slumbering offense than with any pitching deficiency.

Thursday night, Dodger hitters hardly were purveyors of an offensive harvest for Leary. They scored two runs in the fourth inning and then sat back and savored the pitcher’s second shutout of the season, a 2-0 win over the Montreal Expos before a Dodger Stadium crowd of 25,283.

Leary, whose last win was a three-hit shutout of San Diego on April 18, was not quite as dominating this time. But he foiled several Expo scoring threats and recorded 10 strikeouts. Leary’s record is 3-3, but his earned-run average in his last three starts is 1.23.

The win gave the Dodgers (22-14) a half-game lead over Houston in the National League West heading into a three-game series against the New York Mets, leaders in the East.

They could not have done it without Leary’s dominating effort and an offense that consisted of a Pedro Guerrero sacrifce fly, scoring Kirk Gibson, and Mike Marshall’s sixth home run off loser Dennis Martinez (3-6).

The two runs must have seemed like a windfall to Leary, recipient of only five runs in his previous four starts. After giving up only a run in each of his last two games and having only a loss and a no-decision to show for it, Leary knew he had little room for error.

The importance of pitching economically was not lost on Leary, who threw 108 pitches and did not walk a batter. In 49 innings, Leary has given up only 7 walks.

“Tonight was just as rewarding, if not more than the other (shutout),” Leary said. “We didn’t score a lot of runs, and (the Expos) put a lot of runners in scoring position.

“I can’t change the way I pitch. I have to keep attacking the hitters, no matter how many runs we score. The main thing I have to do is keep attacking and not let them score early.”

Or at all.

Although the hard-throwing right-hander allowed seven hits and the Expos put five runners in scoring position in the first seven innings, Leary seemed in control from the start, when he struck out the side in the first inning.

Montreal staged its only late-inning rally in the eighth, but the Dodger defense came to Leary’s aid.

After Tim Wallach’s one-out single, Tim Raines hit a hard grounder up the middle. Second baseman Steve Sax backhanded the ball and shoveled it to shortstop Alfredo Griffin standing on second base. Griffin then threw out the swift Raines to end the threat.

“That may have saved the shutout and saved me,” Leary said of the double play.

In truth, Leary bailed out the Dodger offense, which either produces an offensive windfall or struggles to scratch out a run. The Dodgers have scored 6 or more runs in 14 games, but only twice with Leary pitching.

If Leary has developed a complex over this snub, it isn’t apparent. He said he does not approach his job thinking that he won’t get the support.

“I know I’ve pitched well, except for one outing,” said Leary, referring to a six-run shelling in two-thirds of an inning against St. Louis on May 1. “I can’t change because they aren’t scoring a lot.

“I wanted to keep us close early. We have an explosive team that can do a lot of things to teams, so you never know when they might score runs.”

Except for the fourth inning, the Dodgers were blanked by Martinez and reliever Andy McGaffigan. Gibson and Marshall were the only consistently productive Dodgers, combining for five hits.

It would figure that Leary would be the pitcher when the Dodgers added a couple of new ways to avoid scoring runs--a pickoff at third base and a runner’s interference at second base.

Those two uncommon plays helped thwart Dodger threats in the first three innings Thursday night. But the Dodgers finally took advantage of an Expo gaffe to score their runs off Martinez in the fourth inning. The fourth-inning rally began when Gibson blooped a single to center, his second hit of the game. Martinez then bounced a pickoff throw past first baseman Andres Galarraga, who chased it halfway down the first-base line. Gibson was around second before Galarraga reached the ball and easily made it to third, whence he scored on Guerrero’s fly to center field.

Perhaps Martinez was still thinking about his wild pickoff attempt, because Marshall slugged the next pitch over the 360-foot sign in left field to make it 2-0. The Dodger lead could have been considerably bigger, had they taken advantage of earlier scoring opportunities.

They had Mike Davis at third and Gibson at first with one out in the first and Guerrero at the plate when Martinez picked Davis off third. Martinez, who had thrown to first moments before, this time faked a throw to first, then whirled and fired a one-bouncer that Wallach deftly fielded. He applied the tag in time, and the Dodger rally was deferred. Gibson later stole second, but Guerrero struck out to end the inning.

In the second, Marshall had a leadoff single and appeared to be forced at second on John Shelby’s grounder to second. But second-base umpire Joe West ruled that Marshall went out of the basepath to take out Expo shortstop Tom Foley and ruled it a double play, even though Foley did not have a realistic chance of throwing out Shelby.

Replays showed that Marshall veered slightly out of the basepath and reached an arm out to distract Foley. Manager Tom Lasorda’s protests were to no avail.

Dodger Notes

Kirk Gibson said he felt weak Thursday, but he was back in the lineup after missing Wednesday night’s game with the flu. “I couldn’t even stand up yesterday,” Gibson said. “But I was tired of lying in bed. I’m not too dehydrated. That was one of my concerns. Four years ago, I got sick like this and they had to take me to the hospital for a few days and pump fluids into me.” Dodger trainers originially speculated that it might have been food poisoning that felled Gibson late Tuesday night, because it hit so fast, but Gibson said that he did not eat anything that night.

Shortstop Alfredo Griffin’s ninth-inning error Wednesday night broke an 18-game streak in which Griffin did not commit an error. Going into Thursday’s game, Griffin had only 3 errors in 35 games. Mariano Duncan, Griffin’s predecessor at shortstop, had 21 errors in 67 games last season. . . . Pitcher Ken Howell, rehabilitating from shoulder surgery, reported to Dodger trainers some stiffness developed after his last start Tuesday night in Bakersfield. Howell has one more minor league start before the Dodgers have to decide whether to activate Howell, put him back on the disabled list or send him to Albuquerque.