Dodgers Russell Up 4th in a Row

As a player, he was asked to follow Maury Wills, the flashiest shortstop in Dodger history. Bill Russell was no Maury Wills. He didn’t try to be. Instead, Russell took a low-key, steady, solid approach and lasted longer than any shortstop in Dodger history.

Now, as a manager, he is being asked to follow Tom Lasorda, one of the most colorful managers in Dodger history.

Bill Russell is no Tom Lasorda. And he isn’t trying to be. Instead, he is taking the same low-key approach, stressing the little things.

And again, it’s working for him. The Dodgers, with Tom Candiotti back in the starting rotation, won their fourth game in a row Tuesday night, beating the St. Louis Cardinals, 8-4, in front of 30,761 at Busch Stadium to move to within one game of the NL West-leading San Diego Padres.

And the Dodgers did it with a lot of Billy Ball.

Oh sure, they continued to flex their newfound offensive muscles, their eight runs giving them 35 in their last five games.

The Dodgers virtually wrapped up Tuesday’s game with a six-run third inning, and got three-hit performances from Eric Karros, who hit his 25th homer, and Raul Mondesi, who had a pair of doubles.

But this was another in a string of games in which the Dodgers are getting their runs by playing the kind of fundamental baseball their manager is stressing in pregame talks.

--With Mondesi on second in the second inning after his first double, Delino DeShields hit a ground ball to second to move the runner over. Mondesi then scored the first run of the game on a Tim Wallach single.

--With the bases loaded in the third, Wallach, whose return to the Dodgers on Sunday was highlighted by a grand slam, avoided the temptation to go for another one on a a bad pitch. Instead, Wallach waited out Todd Stottlemyre (10-8) and got a walk that brought across a run.

“He keeps telling us we don’t know how good we are,” DeShields said of Russell. “Everybody thinks they’ve got to get the big hit. But if you take a walk or move a runner over, it can be just as good. He has been preaching that since he took over.”

DeShields admitted that he felt some satisfaction at moving the runner over that he would not have felt earlier in the season.

“I might have been upset that I didn’t get a hit,” he said. “But this time of the year, I know those kinds of things win ballgames and that’s what I’m going to concentrate on.”

The players said that it wasn’t as if Lasorda didn’t stress many of the same things, or that they didn’t already know them.

“Hopefully because we are professionals,” outfielder Chad Curtis said, “we wouldn’t need a reminder. But over the course of six months, you do.

“We went through a losing stretch in Detroit [where Curtis played before coming to the Dodgers at the start of this month] and we forget the little things. We tried to just hit home runs to win a game. But it just doesn’t work that way.”

While the Dodgers were excited about their offense Tuesday, they were equally thrilled to see Candiotti on the mound.

He was activated before the game after being out since July 19 because of an elbow injury, the result of being hit by a pitch.

Candiotti (7-8) had made two rehabilitation appearances for the Dodgers’ San Bernardino Class-A club before returning to go six innings Tuesday.

Candiotti marveled at the team he has found upon his return.

“This is a very loose, very confident club,” he said.

Playing very much as its manager once did.

* LABOR TALKS: Service time that the players lost during the 1994-95 strike continues to be the last major hurdle to a settlement. C4

* PLAY NOW, PAY LATER: Moises Alou, facing a possible suspension for his part in brawl, hit two homers to lead Montreal over Houston. C4

* WHAT A RELIEF: Randy Johnson pitched four scoreless innings of relief, striking out eight, and Seattle rallied to beat Kansas City. C4