Dodgers Pull Out a 4-3 Win : Cardinals Come Up Short After Guerrero Leaves With Injury

Pedro Guerrero apologized to Tom Lasorda for his spring criticism of the Dodger manager Wednesday night, then seemed to do something even nicer--as far as the Dodgers were concerned.

He sprained his left ankle on one of his patented non-slides in the second inning of the game between the Dodgers and the St. Louis Cardinals.

It provided an unceremonious conclusion to Guerrero’s activity on the night he was honored by his former team, and deprived the Cardinals of their most productive hitter for two-thirds of a taut game won by the Dodgers, 4-3.

Guerrero left with a .303 average, four home runs and 20 runs batted in so far this season. The Cardinals battled back from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits but lost in the bottom of the ninth when Mickey Hatcher and Rick Dempsey produced another victory by the Dodger Stuntmen.

About 24 hours after his three-run homer had helped produce a 7-0 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, Dempsey, batting for Ray Searage, laced a single into the right-field corner off southpaw Ken Dayley to score Alfredo Griffin with the decisive run.

Griffin was running for Hatcher, who had doubled with one out, after making a diving catch of Jim Lindeman’s sinking liner to left with two on and two out in the eighth, preserving a 3-3 tie.

A Dodger Stadium crowd of 34,861 saw the home team collect 10 hits off Don Heinkel and three successors. The Cardinals got 11 off Tim Leary, Alejandro Pena and Searage, who worked the final 1 1/3 innings for his first win in three decisions, but St. Louis left nine runners on base.

Denny Walling, who replaced Guerrero, grounded out with two runners on in the third, flied out with a runner on in the fifth and singled to help produce the third St. Louis run in the eighth.

Guerrero was injured on an aborted slide reminiscent of the incident in which he ruptured the patellar tendon in his left leg in the Dodgers’ final Florida exhibition game and missed almost the entire 1986 season.

He singled to open the second inning Wednesday night and moved toward second on a grounder by Tom Brunansky to second baseman Willie Randolph, who threw to shortstop Mariano Duncan for the force play.

Guerrero seemed to start to go down, then remained up, awkwardly jamming both ankles across the bag. He went to the ground briefly, then limped off and will be X-rayed today.

Guerrero said he is positive the X-rays will be negative. In fact, he said he asked to stay in the game, but Manager Whitey Herzog refused.

“I didn’t want to slide,” he said, alluding to his past problems in that area. “I thought I could make it (going in standing up) but I jammed the bag and Mariano’s foot.”

Said Herzog: “I thought he broke his ankle, but he’s walking pretty good now, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t play tomorrow night.”

Some were surprised that Herzog didn’t replace southpaw Dayley with his right-handed relief ace, Todd Worrell, when the right-handed Dempsey batted for Searage.

“Then Tommy sends up (Franklin) Stubbs or (Mike) Davis,” Herzog said. “Both of those guys are dead fastball hitters. Worrell is a dead fastball pitcher.”

It was the type of game in which both managers were open to second-guessing.

Lasorda used Hatcher to pinch-hit for Chris Gwynn--who singled home the Dodgers’ first run--with the bases loaded, one out and southpaw Frank DiPino on the mound in the sixth. DiPino got Hatcher to ground into a double play.

“I’ve got the best pinch-hitter anyone could want in that situation,” Lasorda said of Hatcher. “He knows DiPino, and Gwynn doesn’t. How many times has he come through in that situation?”

Lasorda also had runners at first and second with one out in the eighth when he called for a hit-and-run, only to have Mike Marshall get thrown out at third when Mike Scioscia couldn’t connect on a pitch from Dayley that was low and away. Scioscia then singled to right, but Eddie Murray was thrown out at the plate by Brunansky.

“I was trying to stay out of the double play, but Scioscia couldn’t get a pitch he could handle,” Lasorda said of the futile hit-and-run. “It looked like we were going to come out of it all right, but Brunansky made a great throw to get Murray.”

The Dodgers ultimately came out of it with their third straight victory. They have improved their team batting average from .225 to .232 in the last two nights, collecting 22 hits.

Murray, batting .307, stretched his hitting streak to 12 games with an RBI single in the sixth. Singles by Scioscia and Gwynn and a double by Jeff Hamilton contributed to two runs in the second.

The Cardinals got solo runs off Leary in the fifth and sixth innings for a 2-2 tie and forged a 3-3 tie with an unearned run off Pena in the eighth, when Hatcher made his charging, diving catch against Lindeman.

Leary pitched tenaciously, scattering eight hits in seven innings. He has a 3.60 earned-run average after six starts. The Dodger staff has permitted two earned runs or fewer in 17 of 27 games, and leads the National League with a 2.33 ERA.

The loss and injury, meanwhile, marred a big day for Guerrero, who began it by playing host to the entire Cardinal traveling party for lunch at his Hancock Park house. It was the Dodgers, however, who enjoyed the just desserts.

Dodger Notes

Mariano Duncan started again at shortstop for the Dodgers as both Alfredo Griffin (sprained right thumb) and Dave Anderson (pinched bursa sac in his right shoulder) showed improvement from the conditions that sidelined them Tuesday night, assistant trainer Charlie Strasser said, but remained on a day-to-day basis. . . . Kirk Gibson has been attempting to strengthen his injured left hamstring by running a hill in the Dodger Stadium parking lot and running in a swimming pool where he lives, but it is too early to determine if he will be ready to come off the disabled list next Thursday, Strasser said.