The First Half Grinds to Halt for Dodgers as Pirates Win

It was business as usual Monday at Dodger Stadium, where the Dodgers reached the midpoint of what has been a forgettable season.

They did so in almost predictable fashion, again failing to adequately support their most effective starting pitcher, Mike Morgan, and losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-2, before 29,673.

The loss left the defending World Series champions with a 39-42 record and dropped them nine games behind the San Francisco Giants.

What did Manager Tom Lasorda have to say about that?

“We’ve got a long way to go,” he said, softly and evenly.

And he said it not as though he dreaded sitting through another 81 games, but as if he expected the Dodgers to turn their season around.

His optimism stems in part from the consistency of his pitching staff, which leads the major leagues with a 2.60 earned-run average.

But what good has that done them?

Morgan’s ERA of 1.82 is the best in the National League and all he has to show for it is a 5-8 record. In 14 of his 15 starts, the punchless Dodgers have scored three runs or fewer.

“To be pitching as well as I’ve been pitching this year and not be winning is frustrating,” said Morgan, who absorbed his most recent loss on a day when the Dodgers managed only five hits against Pirate starter Jeff Robinson and his eighth-inning replacement, Bill Landrum. “I’d be silly if I wasn’t frustrated.

“At the same time, I know that the other 23 guys (on the Dodger roster) are pulling together and trying to win.”

More often than not, to no avail.

The Dodgers, whose .234 batting average is the worst in the major leagues, have consistently provided a showcase for opposing pitchers.

Said Morgan: “We’ve been running up against some guys who are throwing Cy Young-type games against us.”

So, when Morgan fell behind, 3-0, in the third inning, he probably knew that he was in for a long day. In his previous three starts, all of them losses, he gave up a total of only six runs, but the Dodgers scored only three.

It probably didn’t matter much to Morgan that Robinson, a Troy High School and Cal State Fullerton product, was a reliever who had given up 32 earned runs in 38 1/3 innings out of the bullpen this season.

But, against the Chicago Cubs last Thursday in only his second start, the right-handed Robinson gave up only four hits and no earned runs in a 3-1 victory. Against the Dodgers, he again lasted seven innings, giving up only four hits while striking out six and walking only two.

A run-scoring grounder by Dann Bilardello gave him a 1-0 lead in the second inning. A two-run homer by Bobby Bonilla, whose towering smash to center field went about 430 feet, made the score 3-0 in the third.

Morgan didn’t even bother to look at Bonilla’s blast. He knew where it was headed.

“It sounded like a cannon going off when it hit the bat,” said Morgan, who added that at least some good came of it.

And what was that?

“It didn’t hit my truck in the parking lot,” he said.

It came a lot closer, though, than any ball hit by the Dodgers, whose only hit through five innings was a third-inning home run by Jeff Hamilton.

In the sixth, Alfredo Griffin led off with a line drive that ricocheted off the right leg of Robinson and through the left side of the infield. Willie Randolph followed with a bouncing single through the left side.

But, with the slumping Kirk Gibson at the plate, Griffin was picked off second base by Bilardello, the Pirates’ catcher.

“That was a pretty big play,” Robinson said. “I was pretty drained at that point, but Dann really picked me up.”

Gibson, hitless in 15 at-bats, then grounded weakly to first base and Eddie Murray flied to center to end the threat.

An error in the seventh by Morgan, who threw wildly past first base after fielding a slow grounder by Bilardello to lead off the inning, led to a sacrifice fly by Barry Bonds, giving the Pirates a 4-1 lead. To the Dodgers, that’s almost an insurmountable deficit.

They managed one run in the seventh, when Mike Scioscia doubled with one out, moved to third on a balk and scored on a sacrifice fly by Hamilton.

But in the eighth, after Landrum walked Griffin and Randolph with one out, Gibson grounded into a force play and Murray looked at a called third strike.

And in the ninth, after Mike Marshall made it to third base with two out, Jose Gonzalez looked at a called third strike to end the game.

“We had some opportunities and again we couldn’t capitalize on them,” Lasorda said. “That’s about the only way you can describe it.”

He was talking about the game.

But he could have been talking about the first half of the season.

Dodger Notes

John Tudor, forced out of Sunday’s game after three innings because of pain in his left shoulder, is expected to take his regular turn in the Dodger rotation Friday against the Chicago Cubs, at least according to Dr. Frank Jobe. Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda, however, said a decision probably wouldn’t be made until Wednesday. Tudor threw for a short time Monday before being examined by Jobe, who said the pain probably was caused by a pinched bursa, which he described as a “sliding surface in the shoulder,” or a lesion that broke loose. “It’s a very minor thing that caused him a little bit of hurt, but it wasn’t damaging to his shoulder,” Jobe told reporters. “I’m sure you’ve all had little cricks in your joints and thought, ‘Gee, what happened to my leg?’ And then a few hours later, it was cleared up. I think that’s what happened.”

Kirk Gibson, who was 0 for 4, has only five hits in 58 at-bats. . . . Pitcher Ramon Martinez and outfielders Mike Huff and Javier Ortiz of the Dodgers’ affiliate at Albuquerque, N.M., have been selected to play in the Triple-A All-Star Game July 12 at Columbus, Ohio.