Hershiser’s Season in Jeopardy : Dodgers: Top starter will have surgery on his right shoulder today. Jobe says the injury is not career-threatening, but the pitcher expresses doubts.

A few yards from the Dodger Stadium mound where two years ago he celebrated being the National League’s best pitcher, Orel Hershiser sobbed Thursday at the announcement that he may have thrown his last pitch of 1990--and possibly his career.

Hershiser will undergo shoulder surgery this morning that doctors say probably will involve reconstruction never attempted on a major league pitcher. Doctors expect to find and try to repair a torn anterior labrum and damaged anterior capsule, a ligament structure vital to the stability of the shoulder during pitching.

The need for such surgery, revealed during an examination Thursday morning, shook the Dodger organization. Hershiser has made all of his 195 scheduled starts in his seven-year career.

“The same God who I knelt on the ground and praised after we beat the Mets in the 1988 playoffs, the same God who I looked up and praised after we beat the A’s to win the World Series, that same God is with me now . . ,” Hershiser said at a Dodger Stadium press conference, his voice cracking and his eyes filled with tears. “I’m gonna make it . . .”

Dr. Frank Jobe, Dodger medical director, said the comeback will be difficult.

“I don’t see him pitching competitively again until next spring training,” Jobe said.

He was asked if Hershiser will be the same pitcher who won the Cy Young and World Series Most Valuable Player awards in 1988.

“With his rehabilitation ability, I think he can come back and pitch,” Jobe said. “But that’s all I can say.”

Hershiser, who wore black glasses to the news conference that was witnessed by his red-eyed wife Jamie, said he does not fear for his personal health but for his baseball health.

“The only fear I have is that I will never throw a ball again,” he said. “My fear is not being able to fulfill the two years left on my contract with Mr. (Peter) O’Malley (Dodger owner).”

Hershiser, 31, was baseball’s highest-paid player when he signed a three-year, $7.9-million contract after the 1988 season. He is guaranteed $1.6 million this season and 2.8 million in 1991. His career record is 99-65, with a 2.71 career earned-run average.

Jobe said Hershiser’s biggest difficulty is the newness of the reconstructive surgery, which doctors expect to have to perform after an arthroscopic examination.

The reconstruction would last an hour and is a relatively new procedure. Jobe said the only professional athletes he can remember having the operation are quarterback Jim McMahon and golfer Jerry Pate.

Jobe said the surgery could have been performed on Fernando Valenzuela in 1988, but it was still too new and uncertain.

Valenzuela, suffering from a stretched anterior capsule, is 10-15 with a 3.54 ERA since his injury.

Hershiser was struggling at 1-1 with a 4.26 ERA. But virtually nobody in the organization except the medical staff knew that his shoulder was injured.

“We had no idea, because Orel never says anything about pain to anybody,” pitcher Mike Morgan said. “The hard-core players are like that. They go with their pain in silence until the arm or leg complete goes.”

On Thursday, Hershiser admitted the problem began in February and early March, when the shoulder felt stiff while throwing during the owners’ lockout.

“But I thought it was something I could work out,” he said. “I thought as I got stronger, it would get better and better.”

Hershiser said that as the season began, it did not get stronger. He realized this when he tired in the fifth and sixth innings in each of his first three starts.

“But I still kept thinking, it’s something I’m doing wrong. I’m just not in shape enough,” Hershiser said. “I never thought something was wrong with my body.”

Before his start Wednesday against St. Louis, Hershiser’s feelings had not changed. In fact, he joked about the frequency of Magnetic Resonancy Image exams given Dodger players.

“You know what MRI stands for?” Hershiser asked. “Maybe Really Injured.”

But three hours later, he was not laughing. After holding St. Louis to two hits through the first four innings, he allowed five runs on five hits and four walks in the fifth through seventh innings en route to a 5-1 defeat.

Although he would not admit to his pain afterward, the shoulder had apparently bothered him throughout the game. And Wednesday night, he finally asked for an exam.

“He said the pain was so bad, he couldn’t tolerate it anymore,” Jobe said.

But even when he entered the MRI room Thursday morning, Hershiser said he didn’t expect such bad news.

“ ‘Surprised’ is the wrong word,” Hershiser said of his feelings. “I was not expecting my shoulder to be fine . . . but I was not expecting to walk out of there having to do through surgery, either.”

Neither Hershiser nor Jobe could be certain if the shortened spring training, which was three weeks instead of the usual six because of the owners’ lockout, contributed to his injury.

Said Hershiser, who was active in the labor negotiations: “Maybe if we had a full six weeks, I could have backed off when my shoulder got stiff, and maybe that would have helped. But we were pushing from the word ‘Go.’ ”

The Dodgers will pull John Wetteland from the bullpen. The hole left by Hershiser, however, will remain huge.

“It isn’t like you call around and find someone who can do what Orel did,” said Fred Claire, the Dodger vice president who said he probably would not seek a trade for a starting pitcher. “Every time a player is injured, you can’t (just) make a trade. We will work from our strengths and build from within and see what happens.”

In other words, they will stick with Wetteland, who is thrilled to be leaving the bullpen, where he was 1-1 with a 10.80 ERA this season. If he doesn’t work out, they have minor league starters Jeff Bittiger, Mike Maddux and Jim Neidlinger who might be given a shot. Bittiger and Maddux were signed as free agents from other teams this season.

The Dodger clubhouse was a somber place Thursday afternoon. Rick Dempsey and Tim Belcher were driving to the game when a sportscaster pulled alongside them on the freeway and shouted the bad news.

“I couldn’t believe what he was saying, I thought he was joking,” Dempsey said. “It made us want to run him off the highway. This was a big, big blow.”

When his news conference ended Thursday, Hershiser was trying to understand.

“I know careers in baseball don’t begin and end happily,” he said. “I know pitchers don’t retire because they get old. Most pitchers have appointments with doctors somewhere down the line.

“But you got to believe. You’ve got to know that it’s not going to be 1988 every year. I know, the same God that put me there in 1988, he put me here today. And I’ve got to go on.”