Hatcher and Dodgers Keep On Truckin’

The next time the San Francisco Giants come to Dodger Stadium, they may want to take down the license number of the grounds crew equipment truck. Why? Because this is what the guy driving that truck did to the Giants Sunday afternoon in the Dodgers’ 7-6, 10-inning win before a sellout crowd of 48,493:

--He played third base and left field for the home team, reached base five times, and scored the winning run.

--He executed the hit-and-run to perfection twice with singles and sent the game into extra innings with an RBI double.

--He made a head-first slide into first base on a ball bunted foul.

--He got hit by another batted ball while running the bases, which cost him an out but got Mike Scioscia credited with a hit.

--He threw Robby Thompson’s ground-rule double that had bounced back onto the field back into the crowd.

--And he took credit for the bases-loaded walk to Jeff Hamilton that decided the game, even though he was at third base when it happened.

Of course, it isn’t every day that you’ll find Mickey Hatcher behind the wheel, either, as he was an hour or so before the game Sunday.

“Most guys when they receive an award get a Mercedes--I got awarded the bullpen truck,” joked Hatcher, the Dodgers’ most valuable maintenance man, after four hours and three minutes of dirty work that left him with skinned elbows, a stained uniform and a contented countenance.

“It was running on one cylinder,” said Hatcher, whose wide turn around third base caused rakes to be sent flying out of the back of the truck. “It had a little more jump than I thought it would.”

Had Sunday’s game lasted much longer, both the Dodgers and Giants might have been forced to press the regular grounds crew into action. Hamilton was the last non-pitcher Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda had left when he sent him to the plate as a pinch-hitter with the bases loaded and two out in the 10th. Hamilton wasn’t supposed to play, either, because he’d sprained his right ankle the night before.

So what does Atlee Hammaker, the fifth Giant pitcher, do? He walks Hamilton on four pitches, only one of which was remotely close to the plate, to force in Hatcher.

“I don’t mind getting beat, but I hate to give away the damn game,” said Giant Manager Roger Craig, still trying to figure out how his team could possibly lose on a day that Will (The Thrill) Clark went five for five, including his fourth home run and an RBI single that gave the Giants a 6-5 lead in the top of the eighth.

“I didn’t really care if (Hammaker) walked Eddie Murray (which he did),” Craig said, “but damn, walking Hamilton? What’s he batting?”

A cool .196, that’s what, and unable to swing the bat much before the game because he feared he might aggravate the ankle sprain. Could he have run a ball out had he made contact?

“With my speed?” Hamilton said. “Instead of running an 8.2 in the 60, I would have run a 9-flat. If the play had been close, I don’t think it would have mattered.”

Besides, Hatcher said he took steps to keep that situation from occurring.

“I tied his bat on his shoulder so he couldn’t swing,” Hatcher said.

Murray approved of that idea.

“I wish he’d done that to me a couple of times,” said Murray, who gave the Dodgers a 5-4 lead in the seventh with his third home run (first right-handed) but also struck out three times, including once with the bases loaded in the eighth.

Murray wasn’t alone in leaving runners on base, however. Both teams had 14 hits, but the Giants left 15 runners on, the Dodgers 14.

Fernando Valenzuela, still looking for his first win since last June 14, was given a 4-2 lead but couldn’t get past the fifth inning after a yield of seven hits and four walks.

“I was upset with myself because I couldn’t throw strikes,” said Valenzuela, whose aim was perfect when he flung his glove against the dugout wall.

On the Giants’ side, Tracy Jones--still looking for his first hit of 1989--came up with the bases loaded in the 10th against Jay Howell but lined out to center field. Howell eventually got the win, although it took a kick save worthy of a hockey goalie: He stopped Ed Jurak’s ground ball up the middle with his foot, which kept Brett Butler from scoring.

“A weird game,” said Willie Randolph, who walked four times, started the game-winning rally with a single, but also short-circuited a rally when he was called out for running inside the baseline in the sixth.

“It seems like one year everything goes right for you--and I wasn’t here last year, but I know what that’s like--and then things don’t come as easy. We’ve had a lot of weird things go on, but everybody in the division is bumping heads. We’re still close.”

Randolph was trapped off third base in the 10th when Hammaker deftly gloved Dave Anderson’s come-backer to the mound and ran down Randolph himself. But what might have seemed to be bad base-running on first glance was actually a game-saving play, according to Lasorda, who said Hammaker would have been better off trying for an inning-ending double play.

“If I don’t make a double-play on that ball,” said Lasorda, an ex-pitcher, “I’ll kiss your butt. But he probably didn’t think he could make the double play, and the winning run was in front of him.”

Lasorda almost found himself kissing the game goodby when he elected not to walk Clark with first base open and two out in the eighth. He brought in left-hander Ray Searage instead, and Clark grounded a single up the middle. Given a similar choice with one out in the 10th, Lasorda had Howell walk Clark--who is batting .591 (13 for 22) with 3 homers and 10 RBIs against the Dodgers in six games this season--to pitch to Kevin Mitchell, who popped out.

The night before, Lasorda had walked Clark, only to have Mitchell beat him with a ninth-inning base hit. He had to walk Clark in the 10th Sunday, he said, because he didn’t want to play his infield in.

“You do that, and you turn a .200 hitter into a .400 hitter,” Lasorda said.

At the moment, Clark is hitting .409. “Then you make him an .800 hitter,” Lasorda said.

Then there is Hatcher, the most dangerous .233 hitter the Dodgers have.

“I’m just a reactor,” he said modestly.

That’s why he didn’t get out of the way on Scioscia’s ground ball in the first.

“I told (Scioscia) I’m a team man,” Hatcher said. “I said to him, ‘When you win the batting title, remember that hit.’ ”

Who can possibly forget Hatcher?

“He does so many things for the ball team,” Lasorda said, shaking his head. “He’s a charger. He’s amazing. I love the guy.”