The Dodgers Could Have Used a Patch of Blue : Baseball: Because of massive tear in Olympic Stadium roof, game against Expos is postponed because of rain. Teams will play doubleheader today.

The Dodgers’ luck has gone from bad to weird.

Playing in a stadium with a roof, their game with the Montreal Expos Saturday was postponed--because of rain.

With showers pelting the Olympic Stadium field left exposed because the nylon stadium roof was recently torn, the Expos had their first home rainout since July 29, 1986.

“Our poor roof,” said Tim Burke, Expo relief pitcher. “It sure has spent a lot of time on the disabled list.”

While the Dodgers still gained a half-game on the losing Cincinnati Reds, they will have only one day to even their two-game deficit in this series. The rainout will be made up with a doubleheader today beginning at 9:30 a.m. PDT.

“And you know how tough it is to take doubleheaders,” said pitcher Bob Ojeda, shaking his head after a pregame delay of nearly two hours before the postponement.

“This roof,” Ojeda said. “Even when the thing worked, it didn’t work.”

The rainout was merely another splash of the bad fortune that has doused this stadium since use of the retractable roof began in 1987.

A game was once delayed because the roof broke while it was being moved into place. Another game was postponed when a fire broke out in the tower that holds the roof.

The roof has been torn seven times in four years. It is made of Kevlar, supposedly the same material used in bulletproof vests.

“The roof seems to have been a mistake from the start,” Burke said.

The latest tear, of about 500 square feet, occurred during a June 27 storm during which winds reached 60 m.p.h. Because it would take workers nearly seven weeks to fix it, officials decided to postpone the $1.5- million repairs until after the season.

“This has really got to make the taxpayers upset,” said Mitch Webster, a Dodger outfielder who spent parts of three seasons here. “At this point, if they lost this franchise, I don’t think it would make too many of these people mad.”

The Expos, who emphasize that they do not own the facility, are looking on the bright side. They note that from 1977 to 1986, before the roof was built, there were only 10 rainouts after June 28.

Players such as the Dodgers’ John Candelaria can also handle it. He is perhaps baseball’s only player who has now been involved in more than one rainout in a domed stadium.

Candelaria was with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1976 when their game with the Houston Astros was postponed because it rained so hard, the teams could not reach the Astrodome. He was also with the Minnesota Twins when a tear in the Metrodome roof caused a postponement.

“Now I’ve got three under my belt,” Candelaria said.

The doubleheader today will match the Dodgers’ Ramon Martinez and Tim Belcher against the Expos’ Oil Can Boyd and Brian Barnes.