Game Is Getting to Wetteland : Dodgers: A trip to Albuquerque in search of confidence may be in the pitcher’s future.

Last year it would have been cute: John Wetteland, standing in the clubhouse, trying to burn his socks and tear the padding out of his glove. Onlookers would have nudged one another, rolled their eyes and said, “Oh, that kid.”

But late Tuesday night, there was no audience. The Dodger clubhouse had been deserted by the other players. Wetteland felt deserted by everything that once had made him one of the organization’s top pitching prospects.

He wanted to burn his socks, and rearrange his glove. And he wasn’t kidding.

“If you can’t burn them, then melt them!” the pitcher shouted to the clubhouse attendants, who had futilely tried to set fire to the nylon blue stirrups. “The socks must leave the face of the earth! They must never be a part of me again.”

He paused, then said: “And this glove! This glove must be changed. It is too soft. It has no character. I must be able to feel the ball coming back from the catcher. We must remove this padding. The glove must be tougher.”

He was eventually drowned out by a vacuum cleaner, and the attendants eventually left in search of kindling.

These days the once-original and refreshing John Wetteland stands alone. And nobody is laughing.

“It’s like I’ve landed in a hole deep enough so that they have to pump sunlight to you,” said Wetteland, 23 going on 40. “I’ve got to find a way out.”

Many believe that Wetteland has pulled the Dodgers into that hole with him. Called upon to be their top middle reliever early in the season, he struggled. Asked to replace injured Orel Hershiser in the starting rotation, he failed.

In his five starts, the Dodgers are 1-4. In his eight relief appearances, the Dodgers are 1-7, although several times he took the mound with the team trailing.

And every difficult Dodger incident, it seems, contains his fingerprints. Hitters have figured out his fastball, and he has lost confidence in his other pitches.

“And it seems every bad outing has become two bad outings,” Wetteland said.

He cemented the Dodgers’ first loss of the season by giving up Tony Gwynn’s first homer in 84 games on an 0-2 pitch. Three days later, Wetteland broke a 3-3 tie in the seventh inning in Houston by giving up four runs in a six-batter stretch.

In his first start for Hershiser on April 30 against San Francisco, he gave up four runs in three innings in an 8-4 loss. In his second start, weakened by a flu that he says might have been partially caused by stress, he left a game in Philadelphia with a 5-1 lead in the fifth inning, then watched the bullpen turn it into a 9-5 loss.

He was involved in this season’s other major bullpen disaster, allowing an unearned run in two-thirds of an inning in a 15-12 loss to Philadelphia on May 19. Three days later, he became so frustrated that he screamed at the New York Mets’ Mackey Sasser for allegedly stealing signs, and the two nearly fought on the field.

He thought he finally had caught a break on May 27 in St. Louis when his offense gave him nine runs in the first inning. But he was yanked after allowing five runs in 2 2/3 innings, and, although the Dodgers won, he didn’t.

Compounding his on-field problems, he said, was a recently published newspaper story in which his father Ed, without his knowledge, spoke briefly of his troubled childhood. Wetteland grew up following his father, a jazz pianist, through San Francisco area bars and clubs.

“That was eight years ago. I had outgrown all that, and then to have it brought back up again . . . that really hurt,” he said. “I haven’t thought about it while I was on the mound or anything. But it has stayed with me.”

Wetteland, 1-4 with a 7.52 earned-run average, has not only fallen out of the rotation but into the deepest funk of his baseball life.

“This is the worst time of my career,” he said. “All I can hope is after I pitch 10 years, I can look back on these two months of pure hell and know that it was worth it.”

Before this season, he held such promise, one source says, that the Dodgers nixed a deal that would have sent him to Philadelphia for Lenny Dykstra. At least one scout said he had the best young arm in the National League. Last year he had a 3.77 ERA in his first major league season with 96 strikeouts in 102 2/3 innings.

His exceptional fastball was rivaled only by his image. He would recite poetry in the bullpen, play guitar in the clubhouse, sprinkle his postgame quotes with references to obscure philosophers and jazz musicians.

But this year, with all that promise unfulfilled, he has grown sullen. The intensity that served him so well during the good days has betrayed him in his time of need.

“I’m so intense, it’s been like, every time I’ve gone out there, I’ve said, ‘This is it, this is my chance,’ ” Wetteland said. “And I can’t do that. You can’t keep heaping emotion on top of emotion.”

Although still polite, he seems constantly mad at himself. The only item in his locker resembling the eccentric collection of trinkets that once surrounded him is a button that reads: “Don’t presume that I will respond in a logical or rational manner.”

His teammates, who have never presumed anything about Wetteland, are concerned. One is even worried to the point of saying that Wetteland should be sent down.

“He needs to go to Albuquerque (triple-A) and get some work,” said reliever Tim Crews. “He’d be mad about it at first, but I think he knows that’s best for him. He needs an atmosphere of more leisure, a place where he can find his stuff.

“You can tell, he’s changed from last year. He seems a lot more intense, a lot more bothered by things. He is going to be an important part of the club one day, but right now he needs about a month of good starts down there to get back on track.”

Another teammate suggested that Wetteland just be allowed to relax somewhere, anywhere.

“This poor guy has played five years of nonstop baseball, every summer and winter, and it has taken its toll,” catcher Rick Dempsey said. “He is showing the effects of pitching too much. He’s forcing the ball. And mentally, it gets very confusing and frustrating when you can’t physically do what you want to do.

“All of it has taken a little life away from him. He needs a chance to relax and get that life back.”

Last week in Pittsburgh, Manager Tom Lasorda showed his concern by summoning Wetteland to a meeting, during which he asked if the player had been experiencing any personal problems. In an emotional session, Wetteland said he discussed the effects of the newspaper story with Lasorda.

“He just needs to get his confidence back,” Lasorda said.

When Ray Searage comes off the disabled list next week, the Dodgers probably will send Wetteland to Albuquerque in search of that confidence. Not that Wetteland still doesn’t see hope.

He said he has been studying videotapes and talking with Hershiser, who has become more visible during his shoulder rehabilitation. After a perfect eight-pitch inning of relief Wednesday against Atlanta, Wetteland said things can still change.

“I went out, I relaxed, I tried a new thing in my delivery, and it worked,” he said. “Like Orel said, something doesn’t work, you try something different. I’ll be OK. I’ll find my way out of that hole.”

But his old socks will not be emerging with him.

“We couldn’t burn them, so we put them in the trash, with all the other Dodger Stadium trash, where they can be just what they are, trash,” Wetteland said. “Who knows, maybe the worms will eat them or something.”