DODGERS : Braves Pound What Was Left of the Team

Most of the Dodger starters flew home Wednesday to play against the Angels when the Freeway Series begins tonight at Dodger Stadium. But a group of reserves and pitchers stayed behind and played an exhibition game Thursday against the Atlanta Braves in West Palm Beach.

It appears that the Dodgers took the right team to Los Angeles.

The Braves beat the Dodgers, 11-0, pounding Ramon Martinez for 10 hits, including a grand slam by Sid Bream. Martinez has had a strained hip, and Dodger pitching coach Ron Perranoski said he stretched the pitcher’s stint to give him more time on the mound. Martinez went six innings and gave up Bream’s slam in his final inning, the seventh.

“Ramon pitched well, out of a stretch and windup,” Perranoski said.

Martinez, who has pitched 11 innings in his last two outings and should be ready to make his scheduled start Tuesday, said he felt no pain in his hip. “Except for the last inning, I felt good,” he said. “I will be ready to go.”

Martinez, who was inconsistent last season because of his sore elbow, pitched well at the beginning of spring but looked shaky after rain forced him to miss a start and shorten another. Martinez’s inconsistency has alarmed some Dodger officials.

Todd Worrell started the game and gave up two runs in the first inning. Worrell pitched the ninth inning of Wednesday’s game and wanted to pitch on consecutive days.

Perranoski said despite the two runs, the mission was accomplished. “We wanted to know how pitching back-to-back would affect his arm, and it didn’t. He felt good and threw well, and his arm felt fine afterward.”

Jody Reed, the Dodgers’ new second baseman, will play in his first game at Dodger Stadium tonight, and he says he is excited about the team.

“The best thing about this team is the attitude,” said Reed, who played for the Boston Red Sox organization the past nine years. “The chemistry is really good and that is something that no one can teach a team to have. No one player can create it. No matter what sport it is, something has to click, and I feel that is what has happened here.”

Reed said the transition has been easy for him. “It is a new league for me and I didn’t know anybody on the team, I had acquaintances, but it was all new. But the organization and the players and everybody made it real easy for me.”

Reed said his wife, Michelle, and 8-month-old daughter Jessica will live in Glendale. “I’m not nervous about going to L.A., but Michelle is. She’s pregnant with our second child and she has never been out to Los Angeles and doesn’t know anybody. She’s more anxious about it than I am.”

The Dodgers will know by 11 a.m. today whether David Wells, a left-handed pitcher put on waivers by the Toronto Blue Jays, will clear waivers. But there are about 11 teams interested in Wells, so if the Dodgers are really interested, they may have to claim him off waivers and pay Wells his $2.05-million salary.

Ricky Trlicek, a right-hander from Toronto whom the Dodgers claimed during this spring, said that Wells is as effective pitching to right-handers as he is to left-handers.

Wells became unhappy with the Blue Jays when they ticketed him for the bullpen, but Trlicek said that as a starter, Wells burns out after about 160 innings.