Shutout Is a Blowout for Dodgers : Belcher Pitches Three-Hitter as L.A. Defeats Expos, 8-0

The Dodgers have practiced needless economies on this trip, and throughout the season actually, getting shutout pitching on those rare nights when the offense exploded. An 8-0 victory, such as Friday night’s, wouldn’t seem so wasteful of the Dodgers if there weren’t so many 2-0 and 4-2 losses in their now-.500 record.

Pitcher Tim Belcher is the best example, victim rather, of this Dodger timing. Including his three-hit win over the Expos in the first game of this series, he has now thrown three shutouts this season in which he was backed by a total of 18 runs. But in six other games, he has gotten a total of 16 runs in support.

His previous two starts were particularly frustrating in this way: He was lifted for pinch-hitters in games he yielded three and one earned runs, both losses on his 3-4 record.

“ Bizarre might be too strong a word,” he said, thinking it over, but then he seemed to reconsider. “But it’s facts, not a slam, that we score none or a pile. It seemed that way even in spring training.”

Bizarre is a pretty good word, actually, when you consider that the Dodger pile came from a pair of hitters who hadn’t been tearing up the league. It was John Shelby, who had been hitting all of .174, who got the Dodgers rolling when he hit a two-run double off starter Kevin Gross in the sixth inning.

This sight threw enough fear into Expo Manager Buck Rodgers that when Shelby next came to the plate with Dodgers on second and third in the seventh inning, he had Gross (4-3) intentionally walk him.

Then Jeff Hamilton, the Dodgers’ .232-hitting infielder, walked to the plate and hit the first pitch over the center-field wall for his first career grand slam.

“They’d probably do that again,” said Hamilton, not at all insulted by the idea that a pitcher would be anxious to face him. “You gotta go right-hander against right-hander.”

Neither was Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda surprised at the move. With the bases loaded, he said, the infield plays deep. “When the infield’s in,” he said, “you make .400 hitters out of .200 hitters. You have a better chance with the infield back.”

Of course, there were two outs at the time, so that strategic element did not even apply. In any event, nobody played deep enough for the Hamilton blast. It surprised even Hamilton, who is on something of a run these days with nine hits in 22 at-bats in his last six games.

“I guess because I’ve been swinging the bat better,” he said, “I just went up there with nothing on my mind. All I had to do was react.”

Shelby, who has put two good games together since he doused his bats with ice in the training room (his bats were hurting, not him, he said), ruined a good story when he disclosed that the iced bats weren’t really his. Of course, maybe one of them was Hamilton’s.

This was all a pleasant development for Belcher, although he didn’t especially treasure the consecutive big innings.

“What was the key to the game?” he asked. “It was the double play in the fifth.”

After seeing the Dodgers score eight runs, and consider that improbability for a while, it was difficult to remember a fielding gem. This one occurred when Belcher had runners on first and third with one out and Gross at the plate. Gross hit a tapper down to third, and Hamilton picked it up, against Belcher’s advice (“I was hollering let the ball roll foul”) and threw Gross out at first. Eddie Murray fired home to Mike Scioscia, who blocked the plate and tagged Dave Martinez for the double play.

A big play, sure, but . . . “If they go out on top first,” Belcher explained, “the next time they probably hit for me. Maybe we go on to score eight runs, but maybe we don’t win by eight. That defensive play was bigger than the eight runs.”

Of course, he didn’t mind the eight runs.

“Things got a little easier with that lead.” He said he expects more, “now that a couple of guys are coming out of it. T-Bone (Shelby) and Hamilton are having a great week.”

Lasorda, who is once again watching games from the dugout, liked the view from there Friday. To him, though, it’s quite a testament that the Dodgers are where they are without the kind of hitting he saw Friday night.

“You think of how many games we go into the seventh inning and we’re out of them, where we can’t try something to win,” he said. “Our pitchers have allowed us to do that.”

Dodger Notes

Disabled pitcher John Tudor, coming back from elbow surgery (the Tommy John operation) threw a simulated game Friday. Part of one, anyway. Pitching coach Ron Perranoski said Tudor threw 55 pitches and looked good. Tudor wouldn’t say one way or another, though. “I’m not talking about my arm,” he said. “If I talk about my arm one day, I’d have to talk about it every day.” . . . The other disabled Dodger, Kirk Gibson, was giving his sore hamstring a nice workout by running the basepaths. He seems to run them more effortlessly every day. . . . Disgruntled Mike Davis says nothing has changed about his dissatisfaction as a Dodger backup, but he’s not going to let it get him down. “I do not like the situation I’m in,” said Davis, who is only in the lineup because Gibson is not, “but I don’t want to pout where it hurts me in the long run. I’m just glad to get a chance to play these days.” Asked if he was aware that there might be clubs that would like a regular outfielder, he smiled and said, “The thought has crossed my brain cells.” Davis, who had two hits, including an RBI double Friday night, is presumably being played to generate some trade interest. . . . Lasorda began his postgame chat with the media with the following observation: “I’m down to 182 pounds. I haven’t been that low since I was playing.” This is becoming a far more famous diet than even Oprah Winfrey’s.