Rockies Jump All Over Giant Rookie : Baseball: Estes starts key game and Bichette sparks Colorado to 6-1 victory.

Shawn Estes? In his second major league start?

Is this what Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda feared when he recently said he could only hope that the San Francisco Giants, basically out of the race, would produce their best effort in eight games with the Colorado Rockies?

Estes, a 22-year-old left-hander who started the year in Class A, went to the mound at Candlestick Park on Friday night and gave up five runs in five innings as the Rockies went on to a 6-1 victory.

It was a night on which the Lasorda comments resurfaced as as underlying issue in this series, with both Giant Manager Dusty Baker and Rockies Manager Don Baylor, believing Lasorda was really saying that Baker might not play it to the hilt because of his friendship with Baylor, expressing displeasure with those comments.

It really had nothing to do with Estes, who would have had to pitch a shutout to beat the Rockies as Kevin Ritz, Roger Bailey and Curtis Leskanic combined on a two hitter.

Ritz (11-10), who beat the San Diego Padres, 5-1, Monday night, came back on three days’ rest so that he can pitch Wednesday’s series finale with the Dodgers in Los Angeles. He worked six strong innings against the Giants, yielding only a double to Matt Williams in the second and a homer to Glenallen Hill in the fifth while walking two and striking out five.

Bailey and Leskanic retired the final nine Giants in order.

Estes was no match for the scorching Dante Bichette, who drove in three runs--raising his league-leading RBI total to 122--on a run-scoring single and two-run homer, his 38th.

“You’re questioning the integrity of Dusty Baker?” Baylor said of the Lasorda remarks.

“It took an awful lot for Dusty and me to be where we are and have the jobs we do. You mean we’re then not going to play hard? Those are fighting words to Dusty and me.

“I mean, why is someone always more concerned about someone else’s club? I’ve always had enough concerns with my own club.

“I just don’t believe managers at this level wouldn’t play their best guys or would send guys out to lose.”

In the next to last week of a season in which his pitching staff has been riddled by injuries, Baker said he was devoid of options for this game.

“I’m starting Estes because he pitched a good game in Pittsburgh [in his major league debut last Saturday] and because [Bill] VanLandingham is hurt.

“I’ve only seen [Estes] the one time, but he had a lot of composure, he wasn’t afraid. I also used to hate facing new pitchers coming up in September. I’d be 0 for 3 before I had a clue. A pitcher always has the advantage when hitters haven’t seen him before.”

It didn’t work that way for Estes, but Baker continues to be rankled by Lasorda’s concerns about the Giants playing hard.

Asked if the Dodgers might simply be apprehensive about finishing behind a third-year expansion team, Baker said:

“I think it would bother them to lose to anybody. Position by position, arm by arm, talent-wise they should be tough to beat.

“Tommy needs to worry about San Diego. That’s who he’s playing six or seven more games with. San Diego has given him nothing but trouble over the years.”

Estes got through the first two innings but found trouble in the third.

Eric Young singled and Ellis Burks walked. Bichette and Larry Walker followed with run-scoring singles.

A single by Burks preceded Bichette’s homer in the fifth. Estes then hit Walker with a pitch and demonstrated his inexperience by failing to hold Walker, who stole second and third, from where he scored on a two-out infield hit by Vinny Castilla.

A home run by Glenallen Hill, his 24th, cut the Giants deficit to 5-1 in the fifth, but the Rockies retrieved that run in the eighth on a double by Jason Bates after Walt Weiss had drawn a two-out walk from Carlos Valdez.

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Stretch Drive

The standings and remaining schedule for the National League West:

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W L Pct. GB Colorado 73 62 .541 -- Dodgers 71 64 .526 2 San Diego 66 69 .489 7 San Francisco 64 71 .474 9

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Tonight and Sunday

San Diego at Dodgers; Colorado at San Francisco

Monday through Wednesday

Colorado at Dodgers; San Diego at San Francisco

Sept. 28-Oct. 1

San Francisco at Colorado

Sept. 29-Oct. 1

Dodgers at San Diego