DeShields Is Out of Hospital : Baseball: Dodger second baseman appears to suffer only a concussion in collision with Mondesi.

Delino DeShields, who was knocked unconscious when he slammed his head into the chest of Raul Mondesi on Saturday night, was released from Centinela Hospital Medical Center on Sunday morning and appears to have suffered nothing more than a moderate concussion, team physician Michael Mellman said.

Mellman said DeShields, after undergoing a CAT-scan, was resting at home. He said there was no timetable on when DeShields could return to action, but said it probably would be a matter of “days, not weeks.”

“He has lack of memory of the event from the moment before to the moments after and he has a bad headache,” Mellman said, “but otherwise, he’s normal.

“He woke up with a headache this morning--he did not have one last night. If that’s all he gets out of this, I’ll be a very happy person.”

DeShields, acquired in a trade last winter with the Expos for pitcher Pedro Martinez, was unconscious for about three minutes while he lay on the field during the seventh inning after chasing a short fly ball from his second-base position down the right-field line.

Mondesi made the catch despite the collision, then dropped to the ground. However, he remained in the game and Sunday said he was sore, but started against the Montreal Expos.

On a short fly ball hit by Darrin Fletcher to about the same place on the field in the second inning of Sunday’s game, Mondesi moved to the ball gingerly, and gave second baseman Jeff Treadway plenty of room to make the play.

Assistant trainer Charlie Strasser, who was out on the field attending to DeShields on Saturday night, said that when the second baseman regained consciousness he thought he was still in Florida, at spring training.

“Maybe he was flashing back to that cheek injury,” Strasser said, referring to the broken cheekbone DeShields suffered early in spring training when he was struck by a bat.

Mellman said that once DeShields was conscious, the first thing they checked was whether he had hurt his cheekbone.

“There was no evidence of that,” Mellman said. “It’s just a sequence of events that represents a collection of injuries for a very aggressive player.”

Once DeShields regained most of his memory, Mellman said the first things he wanted to know were how Mondesi was and how the Dodgers did. They lost in 11 innings, 8-6.

Manager Tom Lasorda said there has been no thought of placing DeShields on the disabled list, adding he was disappointed DeShields will have to sit out when it appeared he was hitting his stride after a slow start.

“When guys come over here in big deals like that, they try too hard to show that it was a good deal,” Lasorda said. “That’s what happened to this young man--he’s trying too hard.”