Giants Are Swept by Dodgers but Still Win NL West : Belcher Pitches a Four-Hitter in a 1-0 Victory

Sixteen grown men in their underwear crowded into a tiny food and laundry room in the back of the Dodger Stadium visitors’ clubhouse late Wednesday night.

Some of them draped their arms around each other. Others placed their hands on their heads. All of them stared at a tiny brown radio.

Together, after their 1-0 defeat by the Dodgers, the San Francisco Giants were counting down the last out in the 13th inning of the San Diego Padres’ loss to the Cincinnati Reds that would give them the National League West championship.

“Oh and one!” they shouted when Cincinnati’s Norm Charlton threw a first strike to San Diego’s Garry Templeton with two out and the Padres trailing, 2-1.

“Oh and two, oh and two!” they chanted on the second strike.

Then came news of a third strike, followed by a second of disbelieving silence . . . followed by an eruption. They punched out a board in the ceiling, they overturned the burners on the stove and then they paraded into a bath of champagne.

Who says you have to celebrate on the field? The Giants realized it feels just as good anywhere as they clinched their second division championship in three years despite losing three consecutive games in a courageous but fruitless roadblock by the Dodgers.

Holding a four-game lead with three games in San Diego remaining, the Giants’ next important stop will be in Chicago, where they will meet the Cubs Wednesday in the first game of the National League Championship Series.

“This feels as good as doing it on the field--this feels even better than when we did it in 1987,” shouted Will Clark, parading around in just his jeans and a Giant hat that read, “We Won, 1989.”

Added Clark: “In 1987, we felt like we were lucky. Now, we feel like we’ve got a World Series to get to.”

Other Giants had no such explanations.

“My heart is thumping so loud right now, I can hardly breathe,” Chris Speier said.

On a night that was as unusual as it was long, that figures. The Giants’ loss to the Dodgers on a four-hit shutout by Tim Belcher ended about 9:30 p.m. Minutes earlier, the Padres had tied the Reds, 1-1, in the ninth at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

So, while the Dodgers were in their clubhouse celebrating that they might be sending the Giants into a three-game showdown in San Diego, the Giants were in their clubhouse listening to the radio and being confused. Their wait lasted nearly an hour and a half.

“Hey, it’s OK, if the Padres win; we can just beat them tomorrow,” Mike Laga said.

When he was informed that the first game of the Padre series was not today, but Friday, he shrugged.

“That shows you how pumped up we are,” he said. “Shoot, we’ll play them in an intrasquad game tomorrow.”

Not necessary. In fact, today the Giants will have their team party at Manager Roger Craig’s home east of San Diego.

“We are going to do that if the Padres win or lose,” Matt Williams said before hearing the news. “We need to relax.”

Indeed, they had just been swept in a series for the first time this season. They had not lost a series this season until Belcher recorded his seventh consecutive victory and league-high eighth shutout, while four Dodgers made big-league catches behind him.

Playing before 34,210 fans at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers got their game-winning hit in the first inning. But even that hit had drama as Mike Davis singled home Alfredo Griffin from third base for his first RBI since June 30.

“There’s not a heck of a lot to celebrate for us, not a heck of a lot to look forward to,” Belcher said afterward. “So tonight was it.”

Give that man not only a gold star, but a purple heart. Moments after the game began, it was announced that he would have surgery today to remove bone chips in his right hand. After the game, he revealed that he had broken the hand April 30 but had asked the Dodgers to keep the news quiet until now.

“What was the use of telling anybody?” Belcher said. “If I did, then everytime I pitched bad somebody would blame the fracture. And everytime I pitched good, they would call me a he-man.

“That didn’t make sense. You’ve got to pitch with pain in this game, and there’s nothing huge or unusual about it.”

And so he finished with his most huge and unusual game of the season. The game’s first batter, Brett Butler, looped a ball into left field for a single. But then Belcher didn’t give up a hit to the next 21 batters, walking only one during that stretch.

After giving up a bloop single by Ernest Riles with two out in the seventh, he then yielded a Ken Oberkfell single in the eighth and a Kevin Mitchell single in the ninth. In all three late-inning rallies, he was saved by the glove.

After Riles’ single, Williams hit a fly to deep center field that John Shelby leaped and caught at the wall.

“I thought it had a chance to get out,” Williams said. “Just found the biggest part of the park.”

It also found one of Wednesday’s biggest players, as Shelby did nearly the same thing in the eighth. After Oberkfell had singled with two out, and pinch-runner Donnell Nixon had moved to second base on a wild pitch, Butler hit a fly to deep center that Shelby chased down for the third out.

Finally, to lead off the ninth, right fielder Jose Gonzalez made a leaping catch of Laga’s fly ball against the right-field wall. Then Billy Bean made a diving catch of a Clark bloop in left field.

After Mitchell’s single, Gonzalez made another running catch of a fly ball to end a game that had, appropriately, started when Willie Randolph made a diving stop of Clark’s grounder in the first inning to stop Butler from scoring from second.

“Those plays kind of took the wind out of their sails,” said Randolph, who offered a different sort of Dodger view on the proceedings.

“I’m not the kind of guy who gets all goofy over this stuff,” he said. “The bottom line is, they are going to the playoffs and we aren’t. And no matter what we do, that’s no fun.”

Dodger Notes

Dr. Norman Zemel will perform Tim Belcher’s hand surgery this morning at Centinela Hospital Medical Center. Belcher injured his hand while batting in St. Louis April 30. The ball hit him during a check swing. The hand would swell after he pitched but usually felt better four days later.

Infielder Dave Anderson said Wednesday that if the Dodgers did not offer him a contract by the end of the World Series, he would probably declare himself a free agent.

The Giants will tentatively use a playoff pitching rotation of Scott Garrelts, Rick Reuschel and Don Robinson.