Belcher Faces 27 Pirates, Wins, 6-0 : One-hitter: Dodger pitcher gives up a fourth-inning single and a sixth-inning walk. Samuel hits a home run, drives in three runs.

Less than 24 hours after one of their worst games and their ugliest off-field incident of the year, the Dodgers needed something to help them forget.

None too soon, Tim Belcher had a night to remember.

Facing the minimum 27 hitters, Belcher allowed the Pittsburgh Pirates one hit and two baserunners in leading the Dodgers to a 6-0 victory before 39,498 Saturday night at Three Rivers Stadium.

Belcher surrendered only Jay Bell’s single to center field on an 0-and-2 fastball in the fourth inning in pitching the first one-hitter of his three-year career. It was the first Dodger one-hitter since Tim Leary beat Philadelphia on May 25, 1988.

It is also believed to be the first time a Dodger pitcher has faced the minimum number of hitters since Sandy Koufax’s perfect game Sept. 9, 1965. Bell was caught stealing, and Mike LaValliere, who walked to start the sixth inning, was eliminated on a double-play grounder by pinch-hitter Orlando Merced.

“That’s something, isn’t it?” Belcher said about the 27 hitters. “In the last couple of innings, I started thinking about it. Then in the end, when the last guy I faced was a pinch-hitter for the pitcher, I put two-and-two together and figured it out.”

Not so easy to figure was the contribution of second baseman Juan Samuel, who hit his seventh home run and drove in three runs. He was released from a jail cell eight hours before the game after being arraigned with teammate Alfredo Griffin on charges of simple assault after an early morning bar fight.

“I get about three hours of sleep,” Samuel said. “But just because (sleep loss) works one day doesn’t mean I should do it every day.”

About the incident, Samuel said: “What happened to us can affect us in different ways. Maybe it will get me going in the right direction.”

Samuel had entered the game batting .200 in July.

Belcher was having lunch Saturday when he heard the news of the fight. His first thought was that it made sense, because it happened when he was scheduled to pitch.

Belcher pitched the day Pedro Guerrero was traded. He pitched the day it was announced that Orel Hershiser required shoulder surgery. He pitched the day Willie Randolph was traded.

“I always pitch on the day something happens that can put a team in an emotional tailspin,” Belcher said. “After a while, you learn to go numb.”

But then the Pirate hitters, ranked third in the National League in scoring, went numb with him. They hit only eight balls out of the infield and struck out six times.

Despite a lineup in which six of the first eight hitters can bat left-handed, the Pirates have lost three times to the right-handed Belcher in his four starts against them this season. He has a 1.02 earned-run average against them.

And he could have beaten them four times if, citing a tired arm, he had not taken himself out of a one-hitter in the ninth inning of a May 28 game the Dodger bullpen lost, 6-5.

“I wasn’t going to come out of this game,” Belcher said with a smile.

The Pirates could only wish.

“There comes a time when you have to agree that somebody has your number,” said R.J. Reynolds, Pirate outfielder. “And Belcher has our number. For somebody who came in here at .500 (7-7), to do what he did to us, you have to say he’s got our number.”

Reynolds nearly struck out three times on nine pitches, saving some dignity in his final at-bat by chopping the third pitch in front of home plate, where catcher Rick Dempsey grabbed the ball and threw him out.