Dodgers Get Into Swing of Spring With 13-6 Victory

It certainly sounded like normal exhibition baseball.

“Lasorda, you’re a bum, the Dodgers are bums, I’m putting the kibosh on you right now, your season is finished,” shouted a fan wearing a shirt stretched over a massive waist, his voice carrying through Tinker Field.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda just smiled and waved. “Guy’s been going on like that for 10 minutes!” he said.

And it certainly looked like normal exhibition baseball.

The Dodgers and the Minnesota Twins combined to use 10 pitchers and 37 position players. They scored 19 runs on 23 hits. The game lasted the good part of an afternoon.

But the best part for the Dodgers, who defeated the Twins, 13-6, Monday in their spring training opener, was that it certainly felt like normal exhibition baseball.

Only six days to prepare? The Dodgers acted as though they’d had a month. Nobody ran out of breath on the bases. Nobody pulled up lame. Nobody grabbed his arm screaming.

And nobody mentioned the word lockout , not even when they tried to enter the visiting clubhouse through a back door and found themselves locked out.

“It was like we got right back into it,” pitcher John Wetteland said with a grin. “It’s like, all of a sudden, my mind is working with (catcher) Rick Dempsey’s mind again, and we were right back where we were.”

Said Mickey Hatcher: “I was really sore the last couple of days, but all of a sudden, you forget. You could tell, this game is what everyone had been waiting for.”

The wait, which began at the scheduled start of spring training on Feb. 15, numbered 39 days--32 the result of an owners’ lockout, followed by seven during which the teams have been rushed to camp and rushed through their drills.

“It’s still weird,” outfielder Chris Gwynn admitted. “It’s like, we’ve been here before, but we can’t remember when.”

All of which made Monday so reassuring. From the 3,385 loud fans, to the pitchers running sprints in the outfield during the late innings, to scouts lounging behind home plate under their Panama hats, it was just another spring day. . . . Even down to three basic story lines found in every spring game since the invention of smokeless tobacco:

Veterans Showing They Aren’t Dead Yet.

Second inning, full-count fastball from Twin pitcher Kevin Tapani. Eddie Murray takes a giant swing and--boom--the ball soars over the right-field fence and lands on the grounds of the adjacent Citrus Bowl football stadium. The home run was almost as impressive as the one Murray hit in Monday’s batting practice, a shot that went an estimated 500 feet and actually landed in the second-deck concourse of the Citrus Bowl.

Those hits combined were almost as impressive as Murray’s display in a Holman Stadium batting practice last week, when he hit four homers in five minutes.

“Any veteran in this game knows what he has to do to get ready,” Murray said last week. “It’s no big deal, you just do it. Doesn’t matter how long you have. You just do it.”

Fifth inning, curveball from John Candelaria, Hubie Brooks takes a quick, short swing that shoots the ball over the left-field fence in a straight line for another home run. It is only slightly more impressive than Brooks’ RBI double into the right-field gap two innings earlier.

“To see that kind of production in the first game, that’s great,” Lasorda said. “That’s what we’ve been saying we need.”

Murray, the 13-year veteran, and Brooks, the nine-year veteran, combined to go four for six with four runs batted in.

A Kid Finally Getting His Big Chance.

While the usual hoopla that precedes most Dodger road games was taking place in front of the dugout, with reporters and cameras and old friends everywhere, Chris Gwynn sat on the bench and stared. And stared.

“Game face, huh?” he was asked.

And he stared.

With a right-hander pitching, Gwynn was the starting left fielder Monday. That’s usually no big deal, but for the first time in his five-year pro career, everyone knows Gwynn has a chance to enter the season in the same role.

With Kirk Gibson missing the start of the season, and Kal Daniels’ comeback still in question, doors have been opened for Gwynn. The Dodgers like his bat and quickness and good sense. They consider him and John Shelby as at least the top two extra-outfielder candidates.

Although Gwynn went one for three and scored a run, he did not wipe off the game face.

“The way things are looking now, I could be in a position to play a little--maybe even play a lot,” Gwynn said. “That’s why I’ve got to keep myself ready. Always be ready. Make sure I’m ready.”

He has played only 61 games in parts of three seasons with the Dodgers, with a .225 average and still no big league homers, and that makes him push harder.

“I don’t feel any pressure, it’s not like I haven’t gone through this before,” said Gwynn, 25. “But I could have a great opportunity here. And I want to take it.”

A Hero Wearing Number 98.

There is this pitcher, a former Angel, imposing fellow with a blond Fu Manchu mustache, part owner of a group of batting-cage amusement centers in Anaheim. He was planning to work with the batting cages full time this summer when the Dodgers called. They said they might be needing a 35-year-old arm with 12 years of experience. The guy agreed to give it one last shot.

This is how Don Aase came to wear No. 98 for the Dodgers Monday, taking the mound in the seventh inning with his team trailing, 6-5. He pitched two scoreless innings; his team scored seven runs in the eighth, and before he knew it, he was the winning pitcher.

And so if you see him at Dodger Stadium, likely as one of the three extra players the Dodgers can use for the first 21 days of the season because of the lockout settlement, don’t be surprised. Dodger management won’t.

“With most clubs carrying 11 or even 12 pitchers, Don is somebody we will certainly keep in mind,” said Fred Claire, Dodger vice president. “He certainly is a pitcher who can give us more depth.”

And hard-knocks experience.

The New York Mets were the only team to give Aase a chance last season, and he made their team as a non-roster player out of spring training. While going 1-5 with a 3.95 earned-run average in 49 relief appearances, he allowed the ninth-inning homer to Dodger Willie Randolph in Shea Stadium on Aug. 20 that gave the Dodgers a 5-4 victory and demoralized the still-contending Mets. And he has lived to tell about it.

“I’ve been through so much, I’ve learned not to think about things too much,” he said. “I’ve learned to stop trying too hard, something I had done my whole career. I just go out and pitch my best, and whatever happens, happens. I can’t look at it any other way.”

Dodger Notes

Rick Dempsey began spring as a new-look catcher by shaving his mustache before the game, marking the first time in eight years that his face has been hairless. “No reason except, maybe it’s time for a change,” said Dempsey, entering his fourth decade in the major leagues.

As expected, only three projected opening-day starters played Monday--Eddie Murray at first base, Hubie Brooks in right field and Juan Samuel in center field. Samuel chased down one deep fly ball for a pretty catch, but then bumped into Brooks in right field while Brooks was making a catch. Brooks also made an error on a sharp line drive that bounced off his leg.

Expect one more regular, third baseman Jeff Hamilton, to join the lineup today against the Montreal Expos in Vero Beach.

John Wetteland, who may find himself battling Mike Morgan for the fifth spot in the pitching rotation after the Dodgers go to a five-man starting staff in late April, allowed two runs in two innings as Monday’s starter. Reliever Tim Crews allowed three runs in two innings.

Today’s Dodger pitchers against Montreal: Mike Maddux, Mike Hartley, Jeff Bittiger and Zack Shinall.