Timid Pirate Attack Enough to End Dodger Streak at 11

The Dodger winning streak ended here Sunday, squelched, appropriately enough, by a King.

It was a quiet ending to a rather quiet streak.

For a team that has emerged from a sound-the-alarms start only to have news of its longest winning streak in 17 years overshadowed by a hockey team, the end came with a series of timely, if not terrorizing, hits, topped ground balls and late-inning walks.

Pirate third baseman Jeff King had three hits and three runs batted in, triggering Pittsburgh’s 5-3 victory before 28,569 at Three Rivers Stadium and ending the Dodgers’ run of consecutive victories at 11.

They talked about it like a team that had grown used to clubhouse celebrations, not post-game interrogations.

“We knew we had to lose sometime,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “It shouldn’t have happened today, though.”

Why? “The way they got their runs.”

Lasorda bemoaned the Dodgers’ long, hard outs, including warning-track fly balls by Tim Wallach and Carlos Hernandez (who both later homered), and relative lack of Pirate power.

But he also praised his team for rallying from a 4-1 deficit to close within one run in the eighth inning and for winning 11 in a row.

“Eleven-game win streak, that’s very good,” Lasorda said. “They were fantastic. It was a lot of fun, I’ll say that. And I’ll take 11 out of 12, anytime.”

Said Wallach, whose two-run homer in the eighth inning put the Dodgers temporarily back in the game: “You’re not going to win them all. We lost 22 of them in the first 40 or so.”

Kevin Gross, the Dodger starter, gave up seven hits and three runs in his six innings, but did not think it was enough to earn his fourth defeat of the season against four victories.

The big blow against Gross came in the fifth inning, when he walked the leadoff man, then two outs later, was told to intentionally walk left-handed hitting Orlando Merced with first base open.

Gross looked puzzled when he got the sign and confirmed afterward that he did not agree with the decision to bypass Merced for King, who already had two singles.

“Just no reason to walk anybody there,” Gross said. “I wanted to pitch to Merced and get him out. I just got their best hitter, (Andy) Van Slyke--he was the key out in the inning. Just wanted to do the same thing with Merced.”

After the intentional walk, King rolled a double down the left-field line, scoring both runners and giving Pittsburgh a 3-0 lead.

“Guess I didn’t pitch good enough or something,” Gross said. “Thought I thought I threw pretty good. Just a typical loss for me.”

The three relievers who followed Gross were no help, either. Pedro Martinez, Roger McDowell and Omar Daal combined to walk five batters in two innings and gave up two more Pirate runs in the seventh and eighth.

The Dodgers had chances to score against starter Steve Cooke (3-2) in early innings, but failed, stranding Jose Offerman at third base in the first inning, Eric Karros at third in the second and leaving the bases loaded in the fourth.

After Wallach’s home run, his sixth of the season, to knock Cooke out, Cory Snyder singled against Stan Belinda and moved to third, but the Dodgers could not push across the tying run. Jay Bell’s soft single to drive in Carlos Garcia in the eighth finished the scoring.

Wallach saved a run in the bottom of the second inning with one out and runners on first and third after Gross gave up back-to-back singles. Wallach snared Garcia’s hard ground ball in front of the bag and quickly threw home to get King at the plate.

“The streak got us over .500,” Wallach said, “and now we can think about going from there.”