Dodgers’ Defeat Merely Confirms What’s Obvious

The Dodger season unofficially ended here Thursday, about 35 minutes after they had lost to the Houston Astros, exactly 37 days before it ended last year.

It ended cleanly, painlessly and just as they would have preferred: with nobody looking. Dodger Stadium was empty, Dave Anderson was the only player in the clubhouse, Tom Lasorda and coach Joe Ferguson were sitting quietly in Lasorda’s office when a reporter made the announcement.

The San Francisco Giants had just defeated the Cincinnati Reds, 4-3. Coupled with the Dodgers’ earlier 11-3 loss to Houston, the fifth-place team was 16 games behind with 15 to play.

What had long been perceptible had finally become mathematical. The Dodgers have no chance of a repeat championship.

“We hoped,” Lasorda said quietly. “Up until now, we always hoped.”

Just as Thursday they hoped to stop their nemesis, Mike Scott, from beating them for the fifth time this year and becoming the major leagues’ first 20-game winner.

The fans didn’t share that hope, as just 13,206 showed up, the smallest Dodger Stadium crowd in 13 years. And as quick as you can say rookie pitcher, that hope ended.

With a 1-0 lead, Dodger starter John Wetteland lost his composure in the second inning, allowing six runs on a walk, three singles, a double and Craig Biggio’s first career grand slam. Biggio later added a two-run homer off reliever Jeff Fischer, and Scott needed only to hold the Dodgers to two runs over seven innings to improve to 20-8 and take a big step toward his second Cy Young Award.

“I’ve thought about the award, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it,” said Scott, a man whose voice and expression are the opposite of his renowned split-finger fastball--consistently plain.

When asked why he didn’t celebrate his first 20-win season with champagne, he shrugged.

“I don’t drink champagne,” he said. “Last time I drank it was in 1986, and we ended up losing everything. I’m still feeling the effects of that.”

Just as Lasorda still seemed to be hurting from last year’s bubbly when told of this season’s elimination.

“We came to spring training with really high hopes, we felt we had improved the ballclub . . . we knew it would be tough to repeat, but we really thought we could do it,” Lasorda said. “It’s killing me to come to the park and know this is happening.”

It was particularly tough Thursday when he stepped into the 92-degree heat, looked up into the stands and saw a first-pitch crowd more typical of a ninth-inning crowd.

“It was a rare, rare game,” Lasorda said.

Not for the Dodgers’ Wetteland, whose erratic performance has done his team more harm than good. In his 10 starts this year, he is 1-6 with a 5.36 earned-run average. Before he moved Mike Morgan out of the rotation in late July, he was 3-2 with a 1.83 ERA as a reliever.

While Thursday’s bad game was his worst, it was not his first.

“I came into (the clubhouse) after the game, threw some stuff, then asked myself, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Wetteland said. “I’m learning how to use different pitches but, in the process, I’m getting my butt kicked.”

Wetteland then offered his own brand of explanation.

“I heard Sandy Koufax got his lunch eaten in his first year, too,” he said. “I’m young. I just have to ride the storm out.”

He must do that, and study the book on Biggio. The Astro catcher entered with five hits in his last 36 at-bats. But on a 1-and-0 pitch from Wetteland in the second inning, moments after Wetteland had walked the .235-hitting Gerald Young, he powered the ball over the left-field wall for his 10th home run.

Another rookie was burned in the fifth, when Biggio hit Fischer’s first two-out pitch over the left-field fence for his 11th homer. Five of Biggio’s home runs this year have come against the Dodgers, and he has had 14 of his 54 runs batted in against them.

“I haven’t been around long enough to feel more comfortable against any certain team,” the second-year catcher said almost apologetically.

About Wetteland, Dodger pitching coach Ron Perranoski said his recent performances would not be held against him when he attempts to make the team next spring, just as rookie starter Ramon Martinez’s problems would also be understood.

“This is all a part of growing up for John,” Perranoski said. “He’s a gutsy pitcher, but he has to learn how to keep himself together and work out of jams while being gutsy. We understand that this year, some of these guys were a year away. We know it takes time. We’re giving them that time.”

Dodger Notes

For the second time in franchise history, the Dodgers could become one of baseball’s few teams to experience an attendance drop the year after a World Series championship. They need to average 33,271 per game for their remaining nine home games to reach last year’s total of 2,980,262. And last year’s attendance was recorded in only 78 dates, three fewer than this season. This has already happened once here, when the 1963 Dodgers outdrew the 1964 version by 309,851. . . . John Tudor pitched for the second time since missing two months with a sore shoulder. He pitched three shutout innings in relief, giving him six scoreless innings since his return.

Recently recalled Dodger rookie pitcher Mike Hartley, by throwing a perfect ninth inning Thursday, has retired all 12 major league batters he has faced. Rookie catcher Darrin Fletcher, with his ninth-inning single, has two hits in three big league at-bats. Rookie shortstop Jose Vizcaino got his first major league hit in the third inning, a bunt single. . . . Willie Randolph did not play Thursday, but not because of injuries. He was being rested for only the 13th time this year.