Cubs, Held to 3 Hits, Still Walk Away With Win Over Dodgers, 1-0

The ultimate sign of respect for Eddie Murray became a double dare for Mike Marshall Thursday at Wrigley Field, the kind Marshall has been expecting from the first day of spring training.

By twice ordering intentional walks to Murray--the first in a scoreless game in the fourth inning, the second when he represented the potential winning run in the sixth--Chicago Cub Manager Don Zimmer twice threw down the gauntlet to Marshall.

But Marshall tapped out twice and the rest of the Dodgers were putty in the hands of Cub right-hander Greg Maddux, who emerged a 1-0 winner over Orel Hershiser on a day that the Cy Young Award winner permitted only three hits and lost.

Two of those hits, however, were in succession, one a two-out single by Maddux in the fifth, the other a triple by Gary Varsho, a ballplayer moonlighting as a schoolteacher--or is it the other way around?

Don’t ask Hershiser, whose computer was lacking its usual byte.

“I can’t even spell his name,” said Hershiser, who won the only 1-0 games he was involved in last season--they came in consecutive starts during his 59-inning scoreless streak--but couldn’t avoid his second loss against three wins this season.

“The guy gets his first RBI of the season, and he’s hitting what, .167?”

Not quite. Varsho, who was playing only because the Cubs’ starting center fielder, Jerome Walton, pulled a hamstring in the third inning, entered the game batting .083. But Varsho, who spent the off-season as a student teacher in Wisconsin, jumped on a fat 2-and-0 fastball from Hershiser and launched a drive that bypassed right fielder Marshall in two directions, clearing Marshall’s head on the way to the outfield wall, then blasting back past him on the carom.

“That’s a brick wall out there,” Marshall reminded his questioners. “It rebounded off the wall at about 100 m.p.h.”

It didn’t help that Wrigley Field was missing some of its usual charm. The ivy that normally blankets the bricks has yet to grow this spring.

“It would have been nice if the ivy had killed that hit,” Hershiser said. “But the ivy’s dead right now, or dormant.”

Until the last week, Murray’s bat was as dormant as Wrigley Field’s plant life. But with 11 hits in his last five games, including five for seven in the first two games here, both Dodger victories, Murray was clearly the most dangerous Dodger, one Zimmer decided was best artfully dodged.

So, when Mickey Hatcher singled and Mike Davis singled him to third, then took second on the throw with one out in the fourth, Maddux issued his first free pass to Murray. Marshall, the next batter, was badly jammed and dribbled a roller to third, which Curtis Wilkerson turned into a force at the plate.

Scioscia followed with a sinking liner to left, but Varsho, who only moments before was waved in a few steps by Zimmer, made a diving catch to end the inning.

In the sixth, Hatcher was on second after singling and advancing on an infield out when Murray was walked again. This time, Marshall rolled out to short.

“I said it in spring training, I’ve said it all along, they’re going to make me beat them,” said Marshall, who has three hits in his last 28 at-bats after an earlier 10-game hitting streak.

“It’s no different than when Pete (Guerrero) was here. Sometimes I’m going to come through, sometimes I won’t. Today I swung at a bad pitch, a ball way inside. I just didn’t come through.

“Today (Zimmer) put the winning run on. If I double or we get back-to-back hits, you’d be asking him why he put the winning run on base. But he’s a genius today.”

Kirk Gibson’s absence from the lineup for the second consecutive day helped, of course, to make Zimmer look all the wiser.

“But Moose (Marshall) will get hot, too,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said. “You put the winning run on like that, and one time you’re going to get burned. Moose can swing that bat. He’s not exactly chopped liver.”

While the hitters on both teams appeared to be easy pickings in this series--in three games, they produced a total of nine runs--the pitchers had a powerful ally in breezes that blew only plateward.

“When the wind is blowing in like it did the whole series, this becomes a tremendous pitchers’ park,” said Dodger catcher Scioscia, who thought he had at least an extra-base hit when he hit a 3-and-1 pitch from Maddux after a two-out single by Marshall in the ninth.

Even Maddux was thinking the worst.

“I thought the ball would wind up in the basket,” he said, referring to the wire netting that juts above the outfield wall.

Instead, the ball blanched in the breeze short of the warning track and landed in the glove of Cub right fielder Andre Dawson.

“Exciting game,” said Hershiser, the sarcasm as intentional as the walks to Murray. “You should just be glad we got it over with under two hours (1 hour 55 minutes).

“I’ll take that outing for the rest of the year--except the final score.”

Dodger Notes

The Dodgers, winners of two of three here and eight of their last 11, are on to St. Louis for three games before returning home next Monday night against Pittsburgh. . . . Third baseman Jeff Hamilton, who hasn’t started since spraining his right ankle last Saturday, said he plans to test the ankle before the game tonight. If he can run the bases pain free, Hamilton said, he should be ready to play.

The Cubs, who have scored just 21 runs in their last 10 games, broke a four-game losing streak. They have won two of their last 11 games. . . . Defensive play of the game was recorded by Cub second baseman Ryne Sandberg, who backhanded Willie Randolph’s grounder to the shortstop side of second and threw out Randolph on a two-bouncer to first.