Gibson Gives Dodgers Depth That West Rivals Lack

Kirk Gibson’s left hamstring is still not 100%. Mike Marshall has stiffness in his lower back. Eddie Murray’s bat has been ailing some lately.

Yet the Dodgers--in an important way--appear healthier in the middle of the lineup than any of the National League West’s other viable contenders.

All have demonstrated a need for the protective depth Gibson restores to the heart of the Dodger order, the type of depth that pressures an opposing pitcher to deal with each hitter in the middle of the lineup and relieves the pressure felt by an unprotected hitter trying to do too much.

The San Francisco Giants covet a No. 5 hitter for protection behind Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell. The San Diego Padres could use one behind Jack Clark. The Houston Astros need one behind Glenn Davis.

Need to the extent that Astro General Manager Bill Wood questions whether his team can win without one, a feeling shared, in part, by Giant President Al Rosen.

The Cincinnati Reds, with Kal Daniels recently replacing Eric Davis on the disabled list, haven’t been able to go with a set lineup often enough to determine if Todd Benzinger and Paul O’Neill represent adequate protection.

Weighed against the injuries to Davis and Daniels, the uncertainty surrounding Manager Pete Rose and the combined 7-11 record of Danny Jackson and Tom Browning, who were 41-13 last year, the Reds’ strong start--they are eight games over .500 and leading the division--may indicate a new maturity.

For the Giants, Padres and Astros, manpower is the issue. Their stories are strikingly similar.

--The Giants: When batting fifth, behind Clark and Mitchell, Candy Maldonado and Ernest Riles hit two home runs and were batting a cumulative .224 through Friday. Maldonado was 4 for 35 with runners in scoring position and batting .194 as the No. 5 hitter.

The absence of protection--the Giants had also used eight players in the No. 6 spot in the lineup and seven in the No. 7--has had a significant impact on Clark and Mitchell, who leads the league with 14 homers and 43 runs batted in.

Last year, when Mitchell drove in 80 runs but missed 24 games with injuries, Clark led the league in walks. Pitchers simply took their chances with whoever was batting behind him. Now, with Mitchell healthy and on a roll, Clark is not even in the top 10 in walks.

Instead, getting his pitches, he is leading the league in hitting. Mitchell, the clean-up hitter, is being pitched around, as illustrated by seven walks in the last nine games, a pace that could continue unless Maldonado and Riles do something about it.

“We’ve been fortunate in that the first four spots in our lineup have been very productive,” Rosen said, “but we aren’t getting the production from the bottom of the order that’s so important if you’re going to win. Had we received the production we expected, we would have won five or six more games, and that’s very frustrating.

“We keep looking for the Maldonado of two years ago. He has nine or 10 RBIs and it’s difficult to remember any of them. But I’m sure he’s as frustrated as management is. What happens, as everyone who has played knows, is that you get so mentally down that it’s difficult to go to the park. Every time you look out there all you see are infielders and outfielders.”

Rosen said he has been looking for hitting help but “so is everyone else” in a year in which “pitching has taken over.”

In the meantime, he is concerned about Clark and Mitchell.

“Obviously, as hot as they’ve been, pitchers are going to start pitching around both of them,” he said. “For a hitter to sustain an outstanding year he needs protection front and back.

“The great performances demonstrate that.”

--The Padres: Clean-up hitter Clark was batting .206 with six home runs and 23 RBIs through Friday. Not all of his struggle can be pegged to a lack of protection, but it is obvious that he seldom gets a good pitch.

Clark led the league with 45 walks in 49 games. But with the walks seldom materializing into runs, he has recently begun to swing at most anything. His 54 strikeouts projected to 186, three shy of Bobby Bonds’ major league record, set in 1970.

The Padres have used nine different players in the No. 5 spot, including every regular except Tony Gwynn and Garry Templeton. The No. 5 hitters were batting .213 with one home run and 15 RBIs through Friday.

Is it any wonder that the Padres’ search for a No. 5 hitter to protect Clark is ultimately expected to produce a trade involving Sandy Alomar Jr., their highly regarded catching prospect?

Said Gwynn, reflecting on the situation:

“For the Dodgers, that fifth man (in the batting order) ain’t too important because they got ‘em. And the Reds, they’ve got someone. And the Giants, they’ve got Mitch and Will Clark. They don’t need anybody.

“Now for us, it’s been different. Jack just ain’t seen nothing to hit and this could turn into a big problem. But maybe if we can win games in other ways it won’t be as big a problem.”

--The Astros: In a lineup of limited power, clean-up hitter Davis had 10 of Houston’s 22 homers through Friday. Eight of the remaining 12 were hit either by Bill Doran, batting third, or another No. 2 or No. 3 hitter.

In other words, the Astros had only four homers by the four hitters batting behind Davis and none from the No. 5 spot in the order.

Davis, a reasonably disciplined power hitter who struck out once every 6.8 at-bats prior to this season, is now striking out once every 4.1 at-bats, clearly chasing bad pitches in his zeal to compensate for that lack of power and protection behind him.

“Glenn could stand there and get three or four walks per game, but you can’t produce runs if you’re not swinging the bat, and he’s obviously frustrated (by the tendency to pitch around him),” General Manager Wood said by phone. “It’s difficult to get run production if you don’t have a middle of the order that fits together and works together.

“It took us a long time to find and develop a Glenn Davis, but the guys we’ve put with him are being asked to do things they’re not capable of.”

Wood has conducted a two-year crusade to find help, pursuing Dave Winfield, Jesse Barfield and Wade Boggs among others, but he said: “We promised to do something and meant it, but we’ve been unable to come up with the right player at the right price.”

And unless he does, Wood acknowledged that the Astros will have a tough time winning: “I won’t say it’s impossible, but without getting a hitter it will be difficult. We’d have to solve all our other problems and that wouldn’t be easy in the span of a year.”

--The Dodgers: Executive Vice President Fred Claire has said that with Gibson, Murray and Marshall, the Dodgers--on paper, at least--are as strong in the middle as anyone anywhere.

Health may be an issue.

Gibson’s hamstring affects the weight he can put on his back or power leg and cuts into his base- running effectiveness. Marshall’s chronic back problem reduces his ability to rotate, reducing his power. He has two RBIs in May and 12 this season. Murray may be paying a price for a heretofore lack of protection.

The clean-up hitter had drawn 15 walks, five of which were intentional, and batted .148 in his last 16 games through Friday night. He walked 28 times in all, 10 of those being intentional.

The Dodgers went into Saturday night’s game 2-2 since Gibson returned to the lineup and pleaded with the media not to portray him as the savior for an attack that was last in the league in runs, home runs and team average.

Batting coach Ben Hines agreed. He cited Gibson’s and Marshall’s physical problems and cautioned against the expectation of instant combustion from the middle of the lineup.

“We’re definitely as strong as anyone in the league there and I definitely believe that having Kirk back will prove contagious, but it might not show for awhile,” he said.

He added that the bottom line on protection, on having productive hitters behind productive hitters, is often the season’s final statistics.

“It can be difficult to measure day to day, but over the long run it makes a big difference,” he said. “You only have to look at how Clark has benefitted from having Mitchell behind him.”

And how both may suffer from the absence of any other protection.