Dodgers Find Way to Win, 4-1 : Leary Delivers Complete Game Against Reds

The Dodgers, as inventive in scoring runs as Tim Leary was methodical in preventing them, became the last team in the National League to get its first victory, beating the Cincinnati Reds, 4-1, Thursday after two consecutive losses at Riverfront Stadium.

Leary, a 17-game winner last season, came within an out of pitching a shutout, though it took a circus catch by the Dodgers’ clown prince, Mickey Hatcher, in the previous inning for Leary to go the distance.

Meanwhile, Kirk Gibson--convinced that Red Manager Pete Rose has his pitchers intentionally throwing at him--engineered a sixth-inning double steal after getting nailed by Red starter Rick Mahler in the left shin, the ensuing rundown allowing Alfredo Griffin to score from third base.

Gibson, carrying the Dodger offense while new cleanup man Eddie (0 for 12) Murray seeks his first National League hit, also singled home the Dodgers’ first run in the third. Their final run was scored by Jeff Hamilton, who doubled in the eighth and scored on a wild pitch by Red reliever Kent Tekulve.

“Last year, I got hit in the leg square and I went on the first pitch, too,” said Gibson, adding that he could have kept playing but left the game after hurrying Red first baseman Todd Benzinger into a throwing error during the rundown.

“(Rose) is going to pay for it,” Gibson said. “It’s no coincidence. I’ve been hit by him twice, dead squarely. You could say it was a slider, but there was no way I could get out of the way of the ball.

“That’s no . . . coincidence. He’s got good control. But I appreciate that. It’s a compliment.”

There were plenty of bouquets in the Dodger clubhouse for Hatcher, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Mike Davis in the eighth and drove in the Dodgers’ third run with an infield smash that scored Mariano Duncan from third.

With both Mike Marshall, who had a sore knee, and Gibson out of the game, Hatcher wound up playing left field, and Duncan found himself in right.

That appeared to put Leary in peril in the eighth when Duncan dropped Barry Larkin’s sinking liner for a two-base error, the seventh Dodger error in three games. But Hatcher, belly-flopping at full speed, made a diving catch of Chris Sabo’s liner, then threw to second to double up the incredulous Larkin, who was on third base when Hatcher made his catch.

“Oh man, I was flying,” Hatcher said, rolling his eyes. “Any baserunner who sees me go after a fly ball is going to start running right away, and I don’t blame him.

“What happened is, I tripped over my own two feet and the ball wound up in my glove. That’s why I figured I’d style (my throw) into second as much as I could.”

Hatcher started seven games in left field last season but didn’t start one there during spring training.

“You feel kind of lost when you first get out there,” he said. “You don’t want to get hurt, and you don’t want to get beat.

“Luckily, I survived.”

Leary, who couldn’t have survived another season like 1987, when he went 3-11 for the Dodgers, was every bit as dominating as he was for much of 1988, when he was the league’s comeback player of the year.

He issued only two walks--both to Kal Daniels--struck out seven, and was at his split-fingered nastiest on the two occasions when the Reds put two runners on base.

In the second inning, after a juggled grounder by Murray and a single by Paul O’Neill, Leary broke Ron Oester’s bat in inducing the Red second baseman to pop out.

In the sixth, after a two-out single by Eric Davis and Daniels’ walk, Leary threw three pitches past Benzinger, the last of which caught him looking.

“I threw him two splits and there was a checked swing on a high fastball,” said Leary, who, according to Manager Tom Lasorda, paralyzed Benzinger.

“He hasn’t seen me before,” Leary said, “so that gave me an advantage in some respects.”

The Reds finally broke through against Leary in the ninth when the right-hander issued a leadoff walk to Daniels after having him 0 and 2 in the count, then gave up an opposite-field double to Jeff Reed, who had three of the Reds’ five hits off the Dodger right-hander.

With Jay Howell and Alejandro Pena ready in the bullpen, pitching coach Ron Perranoski paid Leary a visit but left him in to retire Oester on a game-ending ground ball.

The complete game might have quelled whatever doubts Leary raised at the end of last season, when he was dropped from the Dodger rotation for the playoffs after a so-so September.

“I’m a lot more confident coming off last year,” Leary said. “I feel I have to keep proving myself, establishing myself as a starter, since I struggled a little bit in September.”

With new leadoff and cleanup hitters, Willie Randolph and Murray, in the lineup, it’s going to take more than the first week in April for the Dodgers to become acquainted, Gibson said.

“It’s a different lineup, a different team,” Gibson said. “We’ll hook up better as we go along and become more cohesive as a team. It takes time.”

Dodger Notes

Eddie Murray almost had his first hit of 1989 in his first at-bat Thursday, but Red shortstop Barry Larkin snared his ground ball up the middle with a diving stop and threw out the Dodger first baseman. Murray has hit just two balls out of the infield in a dozen at-bats. . . . Dodger right fielder Mike Marshall, who injured his left knee on a takeout slide of Red second baseman Ron Oester Wednesday night, sat out Thursday’s game. Marshall said he will decide whether he can play tonight in Atlanta after doing some running early in the afternoon.

Todd Benzinger, whose run-scoring single broke Orel Hershiser’s scoreless-inning streak at 59: “With all the talk, the articles and the commercials, you’d think he was unhittable. He’s just a pitcher with good stuff. Any pitcher who gets behind in the count is going to get hit.” . . . Mariano Duncan, who replaced Kirk Gibson in left field and then switched to right when Mickey Hatcher pinch-hit for Mike Davis, doubled and scored in the eighth, giving him two hits in two at-bats this season. Manager Tom Lasorda could have used Franklin Stubbs but chose Duncan, who appears bent on continuing his hot spring.

Gibson couldn’t understand the official scoring decision that did not award stolen bases to Alfredo Griffin and him in the sixth inning. With Griffin on third, Gibson had taken off for second but stopped midway when he saw the Reds had called a pitchout. He forced a rundown, and when Benzinger’s throw hit him in the back, Griffin scored easily. “We ran the play to perfection,” Gibson said. “When Plan A failed, I went to Plan B. How can they charge me with a caught stealing? Who did they catch?”