Kid Offerman Can Play, Says Kid Wills, Who Could

Get that guy out of there, some said.

Give the guy a chance, others said.

Get off his back, give him some time and Jose Offerman will become as good a Dodger shortstop as former Dodger shortstops, some said.

Including former Dodger shortstops.

“Not just a good one,” Maury Wills said Sunday, dropping by the Dodgers’ clubhouse for a visit. “He can be an impact player.”

Offerman’s very Wills-like scamper from first to third on a sacrifice bunt won the game for the Dodgers, 1-0, over the division-leading Cincinnati Reds.

Wills was among 45,799 watching.

“To do that against a first-place team, with the score tied, before a capacity crowd, that takes guts,” Wills said. “You can see how much confidence Offerman is gaining.”

Yes, he is.

The kid can play. The kid should stay. Yet unless they get off Offerman’s back, he also could become a nervous wreck.

There was a sadness in his eyes and voice Sunday when Offerman said: “People always think a rookie can never do something. When I do something wrong, they are all waiting for it. When I do something good, they are all surprised.

“It is sometimes hard. I try not to think about it.”

The job is his. The Dodgers believe in him.

What he needs is for everybody to believe in him, or at least to have a little more patience.

Patience is a virtue, but even the ultimate optimist, Tom Lasorda, acknowledged having had his tested. Two weeks ago, the Dodger manager met with batting instructor Ben Hines for a serious heart-to-heart about whether to advise the switch-hitting Offerman to give up batting left-handed.

Offerman is hitting .306 right-handed, .218 left-handed. He hasn’t stung the ball from one side the way he has the other.

Lasorda is reluctant to do it, same way he was reluctant a few years ago in asking Mariano Duncan to do it.

“I tell Jose: ‘Brett Butler doesn’t run any faster than you, Brett Butler doesn’t bunt any better than you, but Brett Butler gets 61 more hits a year than you because of where he hits the ball.’ ”

Butler last season had 61 infield singles. His specialty, besides bunting, is to inside-out the ball between short and third.

With the third baseman creeping forward, maybe 70 feet from the batter, Offerman must learn to slap liners or grounders and to force the opposing shortstop to position himself two steps closer to third. Lasorda and Hines keep harping on this, reminding Offerman of how he squanders his speed whenever he lofts the ball into the air.

“Maury Wills called me one day when I was a scout and asked me to work with him,” Lasorda said. “He bunted 40 times before he took a swing. Then he started aiming the ball between short and third, over and over.

“Next night, Maury knocks in Jim Gilliam that exact way, and we win the game.”

The Dodgers won Sunday’s game on Butler’s single scoring Offerman--a line drive between short and third.

Offerman has batted 101 times this season left-handed. He has 17 singles.

That won’t do.

“He would be an ideal No. 2 hitter if he made more contact,” Lasorda said. “God gave him a great pair of legs.”

As with everything else, the kid needs some time. He practically is learning on the job. He is 23. This is his first full season major league. He got rushed into action last autumn during a heated pennant race.

This isn’t Cleveland, where he could break in quietly inside an empty ballpark. There were 91,598 eyes on him Sunday, not counting teammates, opponents, coaches and media.

And Maury Wills, who said: “The things Offerman did out there today, those are the things that will make people believe in him.”

Offerman never stopped hustling on a meek grounder to first base that Hal Morris mishandled.

Then he never broke stride when Tom Candiotti bunted him along--and when someone can bunt you along from first to third , that’s the way the Dodgers used to win ballgames. That’s the old “Where There’s Wills, There’s a Way” way.

Lasorda said he doubted anybody else on the club could have done that.

As for Offerman’s fielding, it was sharp again Sunday. And again, give the guy a break. Three great Dodger shortstops--Pee Wee Reese, Wills and Bill Russell--each led the National League in errors in their first full season as shortstops.

You say you don’t think Jose Offerman will ever be a great Dodger shortstop?

Error on you.