Martinez’s Lightning Too Much : Baseball: Pitcher strikes out eight Cardinals in 4-1 five-hit victory that ends in an electrical storm. The Dodgers win for eighth time in 11 games.

It was difficult to determine which was the more intimidating Friday night--the electrical storm or the skinny Dodger pitcher.

Most everybody at Busch Stadium had seen lightning. But none of them had ever seen Ramon Martinez.

With flashing bolts crossing the sky above him for the final two innings, Martinez finished off a five-hitter and beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 4-1.

He struck out eight and all of the Cardinal hits were singles.

“That lightning scared the hell out of me,” said Juan Samuel, who hit a two-run homer.

Added Jose Gonzalez, who tripled and scored a run: “Standing in center field, that lightning made me feel like a trapped rat.”

But Martinez, who leads the major leagues with 65 strikeouts, smiled.

“I do not worry about the lightning,” he said. “I see it hit the street near my house in the Dominican (Republic) once, and it blew everything up. I’m used to the lightning.”

The Cardinals entered the game as the only National League team that Martinez had yet to face. His first impressions were lasting.

“He is everything everybody said,” Cardinal shortstop Ozzie Smith said.

Manager Whitey Herzog said, “We took a lot of funny looking swings.”

Because Martinez and catcher Mike Scioscia worked so well complementing Martinez’s changeup with his 90 m.p.h.-plus fastball, all eight strikeouts were swinging. Before Martinez grew weary in the ninth inning, allowing his only run on a two-out single by Pedro Guerrero, only six of the Cardinals’ 24 outs were on fly balls.

The Dodgers won for the eighth time in 11 games, improving this trip record to 3-0.

“You could tell a lot of them were up there guessing for one pitch and getting another,” said Mickey Hatcher, who added two hits and a run. “There were a lot of ugly swings, which can happen when Ramon is on.”

He has been on for three consecutive games, during which he is 3-0 with a 1.96 earned-run average. But in the two games before the start of this streak, both losses, he allowed 11 runs in seven innings.

Having learned not to get too happy with his successes to avoid being heartbroken five days later, the Dodgers are thrilled that he is 5-2 with a 3.57 ERA. And they are keeping their fingers crossed.

“His mechanics are not ironed out like they should be, but, shortly, he will be a complete major league pitcher,” Scioscia said. “With more and more experience, he will be more refined.”

Before 36,2643, Gonzalez staked the Dodgers to a 1-0 lead in the first inning off Cardinal starter and loser Joe Magrane with a triple off the right-field wall and a dash home on a wild pitch.

Samuel, batting sixth and acting more relaxed out of the leadoff spot, hit his second homer in two days in the seventh inning. It was a two-run shot to left field that followed Hatcher’s single.

The way Martinez reacted under pressure, those runs were all he needed.

Witness his best inning, the sixth, when, with one out, Vince Coleman singled to center field. On Martinez’s second pitch, Coleman stole his 21st base of the season.

But Martinez retired Ozzie Smith on a fly ball to shallow center field and, after Coleman took third on a wild pitch, Martinez struck out Willie McGee.

“He had poise,” said McGee, who entered the night as one of the league’s leading hitters with a .327 average. “It looks like he’s going to be a good one for a long time.”

Martinez shrugged. “If you feel pressure, you lose your concentration,” he said. “In a big situation, when I need a big out, I just throw as hard as I can.”

Just as Samuel was swinging--and running--as hard as he could on his third homer of the season. He has been struggling so much at the plate, he was still running hard around second base when umpire Bill Hohn signaled that the ball had bounced off a facade beyond the left-field fence for a homer.

“I saw it bounce and I thought it was a triple. Heck, I don’t think about homer,” said Samuel, who has five hits in his last nine at-bats to improve his average to .204.

Dodger Notes

Kirk Gibson played all nine innings in his second rehabilitation start for triple-A Albuquerque Friday, but he was a designated hitter and did not test his legs in center field. He had two hits in three at-bats with a home run, a single and a walk in the Dukes’ 10-5 win over Colorado Springs. . . . Kal Daniels left Friday’s game after being hit in the back in the eighth inning with a pitch by Joe Magrane, but afterward he was fine.

Mike Morgan rejoined the team Friday after spending the last week battling a virus. The only time he left his home during that period was to make his scheduled start Monday against the Mets, in which he allowed nine runs in 2 1/3 innings in the Dodgers’ 12-3 loss. “I was an idiot going out there, feeling as sick as I was,” he said. “I didn’t have my balance. I didn’t have my strength. I know I would do it again, it’s just the way I am--but I don’t know if they would let me do it again.” Morgan said he will make his scheduled start tonight. . . . Another sick Dodger, John Wetteland, joined the team in St. Louis Friday even though he said doctors advised him to remain in Chicago and not attempt to pitch again until Monday in Pittsburgh. “I was feeling better, and I wanted to be with the team and get back on track,” said Wetteland, who has had two starts affected by a chest virus this season. He is tentatively scheduled to start Sunday against Jose DeLeon.

Jay Howell said that he was checked by a doctor in Chicago after removing himself from Wednesday’s 4-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs after pitching two-thirds of an inning. “He said the shoulder was fine, it was just stiff,” Howell said. “I’ve got to remember to take this comeback slowly.” Howell has not felt good since pitching two innings last Saturday against Philadelphia, his second consecutive appearance after a 27-day absence because of arthroscopic knee surgery. . . . Eddie Murray’s left hamstring was still sore Friday, causing him to be scratched from the starting lineup for a third consecutive game. The Dodgers won’t know if he can start until checking with him each day after his pregame work. . . . Although sore-shouldered Jeff Hamilton has accompanied the team on the trip, he said he will probably not pick up a ball or bat until the end of next home stand, during the first week of June. Once he begins throwing, he said, he can return to the team within a couple of weeks. Because of the recent good play of Mike Sharperson and Lenny Harris, third baseman Hamilton could be the subject of upcoming trade talks. . . . Dodger coach Bill Russell visited a local hospital Friday because of prolonged dizziness. He was diagnosed as having an inner-ear infection and treated on an outpatient basis.