Hopes and Frustration for Piazza

The man in the iron mask, Mike Piazza, tried to hide any hint of desperation he might have felt. The Dodger catcher strained to hang on to some hope.

He said, “Hideo Nomo has pitched some big games for us. Maybe he’ll pitch a bigger one Friday, who knows?”

He said, “It’s not over yet. We’re not going to bury ourselves.”

He said, “We’re definitely down, but we’re not out.”

And, of his own role in the Dodgers’ being two-down in the National League playoffs, what else could he say but what he said?

“No excuse.”

For months on end, Piazza had been the team’s big thumper. But there is an 0-for-5 beside his name in this morning’s box score. He would give a week’s pay to make it go away.

Piazza batted third for the Dodgers in the first inning of Wednesday night’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. When he came up, the Dodger go-go boys were already on base, Brett Butler standing on second, Chad Fonville leading off at first.

Piazza left them there.

Fly ball to left field.

In the third inning, when Piazza came to bat, once again Fonville was on base, Dodgers leading, 1-0.

Piazza left him there.

Pop fly to second base.

In the fifth, Butler and Fonville were back on base, Dodgers tied, 2-2.

Piazza left them there.

Pop to first base, foul.

By the seventh, with Butler and Fonville again on base, the Dodgers were dying to break that tie, get those runners home.

Piazza left them there.

Fly ball to left.

Came the ninth, the Dodgers were dying, period. The Reds were ahead, 5-2. However, for the fifth consecutive time, Fonville was on base, clapping his hands.

But there was no joy in Fonville.

Piazza struck out, looking.

“Yeah, it was a good pitch,” Piazza said. “But that was just one of a bunch of mistakes I made tonight.”

No one who follows the Dodgers would dare lay the blame for this game at the catcher’s shinguards, not after what this man has meant to this team. Piazza himself did his level best to be businesslike about it, knowing that things like this happen to the best of them.

But this was hardly the scenario he imagined.

Butler and Fonville, batting directly ahead of him, and Eric Karros, batting behind him, went 10-for-13 in the game. Piazza does anything , the Dodgers win this game with ease.

Or, if he guns down Mariano Duncan trying to steal second base in the Cincinnati eighth, after a cleverly called pitchout, the Dodgers would have been sitting pretty. Piazza, though, pulled his throw to the wrong side of the bag, where Delino DeShields couldn’t make the tag. Duncan soon scored a game-deciding run.

“I just rushed it, I guess,” Piazza said. “Funny, that’s only around the second pitchout we’ve called all year. This isn’t the time of year to be working on things.”

Last in the league in defense, the Dodgers threw away another game they could have, should have won.

Karros disagreed, saying, “This game wasn’t lost by the defense. This game was lost by leaving too many men on base.”

Either way, Dodger days are down to a precious few.

They go to Ohio now, counting on Nomo.

“Nomo’s come through for us before,” Piazza said. “Maybe we can surprise them in their ballpark, the way they surprised us. We haven’t been that good a team at home this season anyway, so who knows?

“Nothing’s impossible. OK, they’ve definitely turned the screws on us. That doesn’t mean we can’t do to the Reds what they did to us.”

Sweep them in their park?

Next to impossible.

“Yes, but not totally impossible,” Piazza said.

“We can’t take two until we take one. And we can’t take three until we take two. It’s like dominoes.”