With Samuel on Run, Dodgers Win in 10th

Tom Lasorda has spent the last month telling everyone who would listen that he hoped new leadoff hitter Juan Samuel would affect the Dodgers the way a certain point guard affects the Lakers.

“We want him to be our Magic Johnson,” Lasorda said of Samuel. “We want him to lead our fast break.”

The only thing crazier than the analogy is that it is actually making sense. Like Sunday, when Samuel led the Dodgers to an overtime 5-4 victory over the Houston Astros with a triple-double.

He drew two walks. He scored two runs. And he hit two doubles, including a simple base hit that he legged into two bases to start the 10th inning. He moved to third on Willie Randolph’s sacrifice bunt, and scored the winning run on Charley Kerfeld’s wild pitch.

“Sure, I’ll be Magic Johnson,” Samuel said afterward with a broad smile. “I love Magic Johnson.”

Like Magic, Samuel had plenty of help on this afternoon, particularly from No. 2 hitter Willie Randolph, who had three runs batted in with two singles and his first home run.

“If he’s Magic Johnson, that must make me Michael Cooper,” Randolph said.

It was certainly a prime-time sort of afternoon in front of 13,402 at the Astrodome. The Dodgers trailed, 3-0, before much of the Easter Sunday crowd had found its seats, thanks to Bill Doran’s three-run homer off Tim Belcher in the bottom of the first.

Having entered the game with a 3-3 record, the Dodgers seemed headed toward the sub-.500 mark for the first time since the end of last season.

“But look at the top part of our lineup, it is very different from last season,” Belcher said. “That home run did not devastate me, because I know that our good offense had eight more cracks at them. It didn’t feel any worse than if we were trailing, say, 2-0, in basketball.”

Sure enough, led by Samuel and Randolph, the Dodgers pushed back.

They scored one in the third against Jim Deshaies on Randolph’s run-scoring single after walks to Alfredo Griffin and Samuel. They scored two to tie it in the fifth on Randolph’s run-scoring single and Hubie Brooks’ run-scoring double in a rally that again included a walk to Samuel, his fourth in three games.

“I guess I’m way ahead of my usual pace, huh?” asked Samuel, who just two years ago drew 39 walks in 157 games.

After Belcher allowed the last of his four earned runs in the fifth on a run-scoring single by Craig Biggio, the Dodgers tied it again in the eighth on Randolph’s home run on a fastball from reliever Danny Darwin.

Relievers Don Aase and Jay Howell, making his first appearance of the season, held the Astros from there. Eddie Murray also helped with his second spectacular defensive play of the series, a lunging scoop of a grounder to start a ninth-inning ending double play.

All of which set up Samuel’s 10th inning heroics. His inspiration during that inning, he said, involves his appearance.

“I feel that if my uniform is not dirty, I have not done my job,” Samuel said.

When he hit a Kerfeld pitch toward left-center field for an apparent single, he rounded first and never stopped running. By the time Gerald Young, who was shaded toward right, caught up with the ball and threw it in, Samuel was diving head-first into second.

“What I saw was a guy get a base hit, and then all of a sudden he is standing on second base,” said Dodger pitcher Orel Hershiser, who said Samuel reminded him of yet another sports star. “I saw that and thought of Steve Sax. That’s who it was. Steve Sax, and 1988.”

Randolph’s bunt down the first-base line wasn’t great, but Samuel’s speed again allowed him to move to third without even an Astros’ look.

“There are a lot of guys who would have drawn a throw to third, but not Juan,” said Joe Amalfitano, third-base coach. “That’s the great excitement of this game, guys like him on the basepaths. It was like I told Ron Perranoski (Dodger pitching coach), if this guy gets on base in the seventh inning or later of a tie game, we’re going to score. Games we lost last year by one run, this year we’re going to win.”

Samuel needed only to jog 90 feet to score the winning run. Armed with advice from Amalfitano that Kerfeld has a habit of throwing wild pitches, he was ready when Kerfeld bounced a 1-and-2 slider to Brooks about 10 feet in front of home plate, sending the ball spinning past catcher Biggio and to the backstop.

“I was told to be ready in case the ball bounced, so when it bounced, I was already on my way,” Samuel said.

Although batting just .222 after the first week of the season, Samuel appears on his way to fulfilling Dodger expectations. In helping the Dodgers take two out of three games this weekend, besides drawing four walks, he stole three bases and scored two runs. Not to mention his diving catch in center field Sunday. True, he struck out five times, but the Dodgers expect that.

Nobody was happier about this on Sunday than Lasorda, who has taken on Samuel as one of his pet projects, constantly talking with him about shortening his swing and drawing more walks and playing a smarter center field.

As recently as early Friday afternoon, long before most of the Dodgers would arrive at the Astrodome, Lasorda and the Dodger coaches were working with Samuel on the nearly empty field.

“My assessment of him is that, my (earlier) assessment of him was right,” Lasorda said.

Dodger Notes

In his first appearance this season after battling shoulder stiffness, Jay Howell was his old self Sunday, allowing just two walks in two innings for the win. He ended the game by striking out Gerald Young, looking, on an August-type curveball. Howell said the important thing is how he feels the day after he pitches, but he senses the shoulder problems could be behind him. “It’s going to be OK,” Howell said. “My first inning (two walks) it felt like a pile of rocks, but the second inning was much better. And compared to how it felt after I pitched in West Palm Beach (end of spring training), it’s much better.” Howell’s predecessor, Don Aase, allowed just one hit in two innings and later said that moving into the role of a setup man--something the Dodgers have lacked thus far--would be fine with him. “I’m used to closing games, and setting them up for the closer is just about the same thing,” Aase said. “You pitch a couple of innings and do your best and sometimes you get the job done, and sometimes you don’t.”

Catcher Rick Dempsey was suffering from back spasms following Sunday’s game. If the pain persists and Dempsey is forced to go on the disabled list, look for Darrin Fletcher to be recalled from triple-A Albuquerque. . . . Struggling Jeff Hamilton, who has tendinitis in his right shoulder, was benched Sunday for Mike Sharperson, who was later replaced by Lenny Harris when Houston’s left-handed starter Jim Deshaies was replaced by right-handed reliever Xavier Hernandez. Hamilton later appeared as a pinch-hitter, but popped out to first base in the eighth inning with runners on first and second and the score tied, 4-4. That dropped his average to .125, and could mean that the Sharperson-Harris platoon will continue. The two reserves combined to go zero for three Sunday. Sharperson couldn’t backhand Craig Biggio’s ground ball that skipped under his glove and went into left field for a double. . . . When Tim Belcher picked off Biggio at first base in the fifth inning, it was the second pickoff in two starts for the team of Belcher and first baseman Eddie Murray. In Belcher’s first start this season, they picked off Roberto Alomar.