Piazza’s Shot Falls Short of Infamy

When they play next season at Ted Turner Stadium--or “The Ted,” as I assume they’ll call it--perhaps the Atlanta Braves will fly two World Series championship flags, and perhaps they will remember Game 1 of the 1996 National League playoffs, and how easily they could have lost it.

Mike Piazza at bat. Eighth inning. Nobody on. Two out. Tie score.

Dodgers without a postseason win in eight years.

Where, oh where, is Kirk Gibson when you really need him?

Here’s the pitch: Piazza swings and connects. The ball rises toward the right-field wall. Jermaine Dye, going back, back, back. . . . Chris Berman on ESPN, screaming: “Back, back, back . . . !”

Bobby Cox, the Braves’ manager: “I thought Piazza’s ball was out. Way out.”

Eric Karros, standing on deck: “I thought it was gone. The way Mike extended . . . the way he did his little pirouette. . . .”

John Smoltz, on the mound: “I thought it was gone. It was one of the worst sliders I’d thrown all year. I saw J.D. reach back for it. . . .”

And the ball died.

Died in Dye’s mitt.

And so did the Dodgers, I fear. If that smash by Piazza goes out, Todd Worrell enters the game in the ninth inning Wednesday, on top, 2-1, with a shot at shutting down Chipper Jones, Fred McGriff and Ryan Klesko and breathing life back into L.A.

Instead, the Dodgers don’t score, Antonio Osuna stays in to pitch the 10th, and Javier Lopez sends a fat full-count pitch over the fence, to turn Peter O’Malley’s gully for a day into Lopez Ravine.

“What happened to Mike’s ball? I don’t understand it,” said Tim Wallach, the Dodger third baseman whose second-inning pop fly caught a gust and blew near the right-field box seats, before Dye caught it.

“The ball was carrying out early. An hour later, Piazza’s ball didn’t carry out at all. It was weird.

“Everything that’s happening to us is weird.”

Before this entire season gets X-filed, the Dodgers have to solve the mystery of becoming hitless wonders. They have one run in 27 innings. Six runs in 49 innings. Do they stick with this age-old strategy of “going with who got us here,” or do Bill Russell and his coaches finally get fed up and look for somebody, anybody--Billy Ashley, Chad Curtis, heck, Juan Castro--to change these guys’ luck?

Because they are dying on the vine.

Maybe they could win, if Ismael Valdes or Ramon Martinez could get a bunt down. Maybe they could win, if Hideo Nomo didn’t have to hurl a no-hitter. Maybe they could hit, if the Braves agreed to move Game 2 today to Coors Field in Denver.

Piazza nearly won Game 1.

His ball seemed every bit as well-hit as that 10th-inning homer by Lopez.

“No,” Piazza said, ruefully, “he seemed to have crushed his. I seem to have missed mine.”

Nine innings can’t hinge on one swing, though.

Things are so bleak, one of L.A.’s five hits off Smoltz was an infield dribbler by Wayne Kirby, who was tagged out at first base, but called safe. Another hit was a bat-handle squiggler by Todd Hollandsworth down the left-field line, of which Smoltz said: “One more bounce and that thing probably goes foul.”

Smoltz shook his head at Hollandsworth from the hill, like a man who admired another man’s luck. In the Dodger dugout, meantime, Karros stood and raised both arms to the heavens, as though he had just witnessed a blessed event . . . a run.

L.A.’s hitting scares Atlanta so little, Smoltz pitched to Greg Gagne with two on, two out, rather than walk him to get to Martinez, the pitcher.

“I don’t want to face the pitcher with the bases full,” Smoltz said, even though Gagne ended up the only Dodger with two hits.

The manager also feared that dangerous Dodger pitcher at the plate.

Cox said of Martinez: “He puts wood on the ball all the time. He’s hurt us.”

Ramon came into the game seven for 59.

Oh, how the Dodgers needed a run. Any old kind of a run.

“The way we are hitting,” Martinez said, “I said to myself, ‘It’s going to be a rough game.’ ”

The way we are hitting. When you hear even Ramon Martinez use a phrase like that, you know there’s trouble.

By the seventh inning, Russell again let Martinez bat for himself, even though he would pitch only one more inning. Hungry for a run, Ramon hacked away, making Smoltz--the best pitcher in baseball--throw 10 pitches, fouling off one after another, before finally striking out.

Ramon was trying to hit one out. Way out.

Because if not him, who?

And if not soon, when?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Drought

The Dodgers have scored only six runs in their last 48 innings. A look at the culprits:

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Player AB R H RBI .AVG Kirby 16 0 2 0 .125 Hollandsworth 19 1 2 1 .105 Piazza 20 0 4 1 .200 Karros 19 1 4 0 .211 Mondesi 20 3 6 0 .300 Wallach 20 0 3 1 .150 DeShields 16 0 4 2 .250 Gagne 14 1 4 1 .286 Team 168 6 29 6 .173

*--*

Note: Dodgers have only five extra-base hits.