Dodgers Get Feel-Good Win

The Dodgers have no idea when their manager is coming back. They’re still unsure whether their starting center fielder will return. Their All-Star catcher is playing on a bum knee.

You know what?

They’ve never felt better about themselves.

The Dodgers pounded the San Francisco Giants, 8-3, Thursday night in front of 37,305 at Dodger Stadium in their first game back from the All-Star break, and wasted little time in showing their superiority.

The Dodgers (48-42) moved back into a tie for first place in the National League West, lashing out 15 hits--13 singles and two doubles--methodically defeating the Giants for their sixth victory in the last eight games.

Interim Manager Bill Russell had the Dodgers out on the field for a full-scale workout at 2:30 in the afternoon then kept them behind closed doors for a team meeting before the game.

He told them to keep staying aggressive. He told them if they played their brand of baseball, the rest will take care of itself. He told them just to go out, relax, have fun, and they’ll be surprised at what can happen.

“It shows you what kind of players we have,” said Russell, who is 7-7 since replacing Manager Tom Lasorda. “We’ve had some adversities. But right now we’re doing everything right and having fun.”

It may have been a little rocky at the outset, falling behind, 2-0, before stepping to the plate, but the Dodgers recovered just nicely with starter Ramon Martinez (7-3) turning in a gutsy eight-inning performance.

It has been a frenzied last few days for Martinez, whose 64-year-old father, Jaime, suffered a heart attack July 3 in the Dominican Republic. Martinez originally was going to be with his brother, Pedro Martinez of the Montreal Expos, at the All-Star game, but instead wound up taking a red-eye flight Saturday night to be with his father.

“He’s doing much better now,” said Martinez, who hopes to bring his father to Los Angeles within a week. “I think it helps him every time when we pitch good. It makes him feel much better.”

Martinez yielded two runs in the first inning, including a leadoff homer to Marvin Benard for his first career homer, but only one unearned run the rest of the way. In fact, after yielding three hits in the first inning, he permitted only a bloop single to the final 29 batters he faced.

While his teammates provided little help defensively, they compensated with their 15-hit attack, including a hit by everyone in the lineup except second baseman Delino DeShields. Center fielder Chad Fonville, first baseman Eric Karros and third baseman Mike Blowers each had three-hit games.

The Dodger offense, ranking among the worst in the major leagues for most of the season, suddenly is hitting .338 with 75 runs and 19 homers in the last 10 games.

The offense has been jump-started by Chad Fonville, who moved back into the starting lineup 10 games ago. Fonville, whom the Giants gave up on a year ago, took revenge against his former club with three hits and two runs driven in, and now is batting .318 with 10 runs and seven RBIs in the last nine games.

Considering the way the Dodgers are hitting, and with a pitching staff ranking only behind the Atlanta Braves, its no wonder that Fred Claire, Dodger executive vice president, plans to do little more than perhaps fine-tune the team before the July 31 trading deadline.

“I feel good where we are,” Claire said. “My assessment is that we have more potential to move beyond [the first-half] point than we did last year. I think our upside is higher. We still have to establish that, but it exists for us. . . .

“I don’t think we’ll do anything [of major consequence] as long as everybody stays healthy and continues to perform.”

The Dodgers broke the game open in the first inning with a six-run outburst that probably left Giant starter Mark Leiter (4-8) frustrated. It happened so innocently, and consisted of nothing more damaging than flares, bloops and seeing-eye singles, but by the time it ended, the Dodgers had a 6-2 lead.