BASEBALL DAILY REPORT : Mondesi Is a Bright Spot on Trip

The Dodgers, still guaranteed a winning record during this trip to the East that has haunted them since 1990, say nothing has been more encouraging than the play of right fielder Raul Mondesi.

Mondesi finally appears to have shed his monthlong slump, batting .333 this trip with six RBIs. He hit a two-run double Saturday in the Dodgers’ 4-3 loss to the New York Mets, hitting safely in five consecutive games.

“I’m finally playing like I should have all year,” said Mondesi, batting .244 with 12 homers and 36 RBIs. “Everything’s so much better. I have more patience, more confidence, everything.”

Well, there has been one little problem. . . .

“I’ve got too many friends and family here,” Mondesi said. “I want to leave tickets for all the guys, but they only allow me to leave six tickets. So I have to make some of my friends mad.

“I tell them, ‘Sorry, you’ve got to pay.’ ”

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Manager Tom Lasorda, thinking back to the 1977 World Series, bailed out on Fox-TV and decided not to have a live microphone on him Saturday.

Lasorda agreed to have a live microphone on him during the World Series with the stipulation that the Dodgers must approve what is carried on the airwaves. Yet Lasorda remembers arguing with pitcher Doug Rau on the mound during the ’77 World Series, and the next thing he knew, there were bootleg copies of the tape sent on the black market.

“I just couldn’t relax doing it,” Lasorda said. “I might say something I wouldn’t want to get out.”

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It may have been an unnecessary collision, but second baseman Delino DeShields will tell you there was nothing illegal about Belle throwing a forearm shiver into Milwaukee’s Vina, breaking his nose.

“There’s a lot of guys who try to mess you up at second base, just not many get away with it,” DeShields said. “I remember [former New York Met] Kevin McReynolds knocking me off the bag pretty good one day. He knocked me into the outfield. But, hey, it’s part of the game.”

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Catcher Mike Piazza, playing two games and catching 15 innings in 23 hours, says his right knee had “a little bit of stiffness, but nothing that isn’t tolerable.”