Dodgers Can’t Help but Walk Into Win Over the Giants, 7-4

The cliche is not always right. When you are the Dodgers, and only one team in the league has a worse batting average than your .236, a walk is better than a hit.

The San Francisco Giant pitchers, answering an untimely call of the wild, sadly learned that Wednesday night. They gave the Dodgers three runs on bases-loaded walks. They set up another run on a walk and another on a wild pitch.

Everyone knows the best place for Dodger bats is their shoulders. Thus they won, 7-4, before 45,478 at Dodger Stadium despite getting only six hits.

In one of the most inactive 11-run games in recent memory, the game was cinched, on a walk the Giants didn’t allow. With runners on second and third and two out in the sixth inning, pitcher Steve Bedrosian did not intentionally walk Eddie Murray. And Murray lined a single to center to score the Dodgers’ final two runs. Combined with his first-inning RBI on a walk, Murray has 16 runs batted in in his last 19 at-bats and 62 RBIs overall.

“Roger (Craig, Giant manager) probably figured the way his guys where throwing the ball, they might not get it over the plate anyway,” said the Dodgers’ Tom Lasorda after managing his 2,000th game. “Roger is a great manager, he knows what he is doing.”

Craig is also a worried manager. If pitching wins championships, the Giants better leave town while they have some left.

Not only did they lose their composure Wednesday, the National League West leaders lost two starters with a chance they might lose a third.

This series started ominously enough for the Giants when Tuesday’s starter Scott Garrelts left the game in the sixth inning with a stiff right elbow. He could be out.

Before Wednesday’s game things grew considerably worse when pitcher Rick Reuschel was placed on the 15-day disabled list with a strained muscle in his right groin. He was 13-5 with a 2.45 earned-run average. He will probably miss three starts.

Then in Wednesday’s third inning, shortly after the Reuschel announcement, starter Atlee Hammaker went out, spraining his left knee while sliding into second base in the third inning. He was carried off the field on a stretcher. He was placed on the 21-day disabled list.

The bad luck nearly reached a ludicrous point during the next inning when Hammaker’s replacement, Trevor Wilson, was hit in the arm by a Ramon Martinez pitch. But Wilson stayed in the game.

Meanwhile, Giants’ minor leaguers Russ Swan, Randy McCament and Ernie Camacho are all being recalled from triple-A Phoenix.

“It’s going to be a tough couple of weeks, we’ve got to keep our head above water,” Craig said, shaking his head. “We’ve got a chance of losing three starters in three days.”

And then for Craig to watch his pitchers be so generous Wednesday.

“They didn’t win this game,” he said of the Dodgers. “We gave it to them.”

Four of the six Giants’ pitchers gave up at least one walk. They totaled eight, equaling a Dodger season high. The Giants even walked Martinez, the Dodger starter and winner, with the bases loaded. It was his first major league walk and first RBI.

“They were very generous tonight,” said Murray, who was walked on four consecutive pitches to drive in the Dodgers’ first run after starter Hammaker had loaded the bases on a walk and two singles. “I could have swung at that pitch, but at 3-and-0, I wasn’t even going to look at it.”

Dodger Notes

Wednesday’s crowd put the Dodgers over the 2-million mark in attendance for the 17th consecutive season. They have drawn 2,033,331. . . . After 2,000 games, Lasorda is 1,070-930, a .535 percentage.

Kal Daniels, who has hit .342 since coming to the Dodgers July 18, didn’t start Wednesday because of right knee problems. In his 12 games as a Dodger, it was the second time he missed a start because of the injury. “It’s part of my rehabilitation--I take a day off when it flares up and then go back the next day,” said Daniels, who underwent arthroscopic surgery on the knee in May. “I’ll keep working to get it strong, and then I’ll keep it strong.” . . . Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser missed Wednesday’s game because he had the flu but is expected to make his scheduled start today. The last time Hershiser missed a game with a virus, he came back the next night to throw a four-hitter, beating Chicago, 4-1, on July 18.

Dodger announcer Don Drysdale will return to the air tonight after missing nearly two weeks with heart problems. In squelching rumors that Drysdale might be out for the season, Dr. Mickey Mellman said that Drysdale was fully recovered from an angioplasty performed on his heart July 21 after Drysdale complained of chest pains. An angioplasty is the non-surgical opening of a partially blocked blood vessel with a balloon-like device. “He’s fine,” Mellman said. “Everything has checked out fine.” . . . The Dodgers acquired left-hander Ed Vosberg, who will join triple-A Albuquerque as the player to be named in last week’s deal that sent outfielder prospect Javier Ortiz to Houston.