Dodger Bullpen Can’t Hold On

Dodger Manager Bill Russell hoped and prayed that his dramatic lineup change would resurrect the offense, but never did he imagine having to look toward the heavens Tuesday night for guidance with his bullpen.

In a zany night in which the Dodgers were within one out of winning on catcher Mike Piazza’s mad dash home, the Dodgers instead watched the St. Louis Cardinals pull off a dramatic 6-4 victory in front of 27,074 at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers, leading, 4-3, with nobody on and two outs in the ninth, watched in disbelief as the Cardinals scored three runs off closer Todd Worrell.

“You don’t see that happen very often when Todd can’t hold the lead,” Russell said. “It hasn’t happened very often, and it won’t.”

It began so innocently with an infield single by Ray Lankford. Worrell shrugged it off, and didn’t seem to mind when Lankford stole second, and then third. Yet, he then made the painful mistake of also walking Brian Jordan.

That brought up Gary Gaetti, the man who flopped with the Angels, but who resurrected his career the moment he drove out of the city limits. Gaetti, with Jordan running on the pitch, drilled a high fastball into the left-field corner, scoring Lankford and Jordan. John Mabry then stepped up and followed with a double into the right-center gap for another run.

Just like that, the Cardinals had a 6-4 lead, and Dennis Eckersley came to the mound and slammed the door shut on the Dodgers with a 1-2-3 ninth.

“What’s hard for me to accept is getting two outs and not getting that third out,” Worrell said. “That’s what really bothers me. Some nights you have it, some nights you don’t. I can’t get the third out, it makes it hard to swallow.”

It left the Dodgers with their third consecutive defeat, and easily their most bitter of the young season, erasing all of the good memories of the previous eight innings.

The Dodgers appeared to have stole the game in the bottom of the eighth when Piazza took a page out of the Kirk Gibson school of hustle.

The Dodgers, who had tied the game, 3-3, in the eighth on Raul Mondesi’s infield single off reliever John Frascatore’s right leg, had two outs with Piazza on second and Mondesi on first when it happened. Frascatore fell behind 3-and-1 to Todd Hollandsworth. The next pitch was in the dirt, bouncing away from catcher Tom Lampkin toward the backstop.

Piazza ran to third and kept running while Frascatore nonchalantly ran toward home. Piazza, picking up steam, leaped toward home and slid in just underneath Frascatore’s tag.

“You don’t exactly want to see Piazza rounding third and heading home in that situation,” Russell said, “but [the lack of offense] is on their minds. The veterans know we have to stay aggressive.”

Yet, the heroics were all forgotten one inning later.

The game also ruined Russell’s first dramatic lineup change of the year when he junked the experiment of Mondesi batting third and went back to basics.

Piazza was back as the No. 3 hitter. Eric Karros moved to the cleanup spot. Raul Mondesi was dropped to fifth. And Greg Gagne and Wilton Guerrero traded places, with Gagne moving to second and Guerrero dropping to eighth.

“When you’re not scoring any runs,” Russell said, “you’ve got make some changes.”

“When something isn’t working, you’ve got to try something different until you get some production. “We’re trying to get ourselves squared away. . . . We’re going in the right direction. And we just can’t hold the lead.”

The lineup change was well-received in the clubhouse, and Mondesi, who had two hits and two runs batted in, said he had no problems with the move.

“It’s not a negative thing with Mondy,” Piazza said. “It’s just that Mondy is a free swinger. The No. 3 hitter has to be more disciplined, take more walks. Mondy’s going to hit very well no matter where he is in the lineup.

“It wasn’t like this was his fault, but for whatever reason, we just haven’t been hitting as a team.”

The move looked ingenious in the first inning when the Dodgers jumped to a 2-0 lead, producing as many runs as they did in their previous 20 innings.

Brett Butler, batting .517 his last seven games, led off the Dodgers’ first with his first bunt-single of the season. Gagne executed the hit-and-run perfectly with a single through the spot vacated by Cardinal second baseman Delino DeShields, advancing Butler to third.

Piazza struck out on three pitches for the first out, bringing up Karros. Karros, hitting only .189 with two RBIs as the No. 5 hitter, slapped a single to left, scoring Butler and advancing Gagne to third. Mondesi grounded out for the second out, but Gagne scored for the 2-0 lead.

Yet, the Dodgers’ euphoria slowly dissipated when their mental and physical blunders allowed the Cardinals to get back in the game.