This Win Means More to Lasorda

Shortly after the Dodgers’ 1-0 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals Thursday night, Manager Tom Lasorda ran his hands through his hair and picked up the telephone.

In perhaps the most difficult game of his life, he had managed his best game of the season.

Now he wanted to stop everything and call his wife, Jo.

“Honey?” he said. “It’s me. Are you OK?”

One day earlier, they attended memorial services for their only son, Tommy Jr., better known as Spunky. Lasorda had stayed awake until 3 a.m., then two hours later flew to St. Louis for this game.

He was exhausted, but Lasorda wanted to let his wife know what he had just learned after a few hours on a baseball field.

Yes, it is possible for life to go on.

“Jo said, ‘Honey, a night like this must really make you happy,’ ” Lasorda said. “I told her, ‘All I could think about during the game was Spunky. I was thinking about Spunky, thinking about Spunky.

“I couldn’t let it cloud my mind, but it was so hard . . . “

But did Lasorda manage.

He helped engineer the Dodgers’ only run in the first inning by ordering Brett Butler to steal before the game was 5 minutes old.

He helped confuse the Cardinals in the final two innings by replacing starter Bob Ojeda with John Candelaria and then Tim Crews. They were two odd choices that worked perfectly. Candelaria saved a run with a strikeout and Crews recorded his third save of the season.

“It feels so good to get back here and do what I was meant to do,” said Lasorda, whose son died at 33 after a lengthy bout of pneumonia and dehydration.

“Jo and I and Laura (daughter) are realizing that we have to live our lives in the Christian belief that Spunky is finally at peace. He is walking again, he is happy again.”

The Dodgers were a solemn bunch when Lasorda arrived at the clubhouse Thursday afternoon. They took turns entering his office and either shaking his hand or hugging him.

“It made me realize, I am so lucky, I have two families. These guys are also my family. And these guys love me like real family.”

After the game, the Dodgers were hugging each other. They had taken two of three games here with consecutive shutouts and remained 1 1/2 games in first place.

They have either won or tied 10 consecutive series, and even though they did not sweep the Cardinals, their pitchers dominated.

The Cardinals entered the series as the best hitting team in baseball, but did not score a run against a Dodger starter. Overall they batted .158 during the series, more than 100 points less than their season average.

“And the way we won the game tonight . . . you have to win these kinds of games to win championships,” Lasorda said. “You talk of championship-caliber teams, you talk of games like this.”

The Dodgers are only 6-7 in one-run games, but didn’t act like it Thursday.

In the first inning, after Butler led off a game by reaching base (with a single) for the 22nd time this season, Lasorda gave him the steal sign. Juan Samuel picked it up and swung at the pitch.

Samuel grounded the ball to right field, Butler ran to third, and moments later he scored the game’s only run on a fly ball by Chris Gwynn.

“Why not get something going?” Lasorda said. “Those two guys are great at getting something going.”

After Ojeda had thrown 7 1/3 innings, giving up only four hits in his best outing of the season, Lasorda went back to work.

With a runner on second and one out in the eighth after Jose Oquendo’s double, Lasorda replaced Ojeda with left-hander Candelaria even though right-handed pinch-hitter Craig Wilson was coming to bat.

“Tommy told me he wanted a strikeout, but I’m not a strikeout pitcher,” Candelaria.

Candelaria struck out Wilson on four pitches.

“I didn’t know it was so easy,” Candelaria said.

Candelaria then walked Ozzie Smith. But instead of bringing late-inning specialists Jay Howell or Jim Gott, Lasorda called for Crews, who struck out pinch-hitter Gerald Perry on three pitches to end the inning. Then Lasorda did another unusual thing. He let Crews pitch the ninth.

“The guy throws two strikes on a hitter quicker than anybody I’ve seen lately,” Lasorda said. “That was the kind of guy we needed.”

The middle reliever responded by retiring the Cardinals in order on 11 pitches.

While his teammates ran onto the field to congratulate him, Crews simply stood on the mound and shrugged. He is still weak after losing seven pounds last weekend because of a stomach ailment, but he is working on a string of 10 2/3 scoreless innings.

“Before I got here, I never even heard of Tim Crews,” Candelaria said. “I’ve heard of him now.”