Karros, Dodgers Prevail in End

Just another night in the rarefied air of Coors Field.

Just another night of lazy flies turning into loud homers.

Just another night of pitchers turning into punching bags.

Just another baseball game turned into a softball game with a football score.

But not for Eric Karros.

He was zero for five when he came up in the 10th inning of a game in which there would be 26 runs and 40 hits. But Karros promptly got the biggest hit of all, smacking a two-run homer, his 21st, to lead the Dodgers to a 14-12, 10-inning victory in front of a sellout crowd of 48,360.

Wilton Guerrero added a run-scoring single before the inning was over.

Jeff Reed’s solo home run in the bottom of the 10th, his second homer of the night, made it close before Todd Worrell shut down the Rockies for his 21st save.

“I was a bad hitter tonight,” Karros said. “At least I salvaged something and avoided a zero-for-six game. It wasn’t my night, but fortunately it was everyone else’s night.”

Reminded that he had driven in the winning run, Karros replied, “I’ll take it.”

Worrell will gladly take the save, especially after having blown the lead in the only loss in the Dodgers’ recently concluded series against the San Francisco Giants. “You try not to dwell on bad outings,” Worrell said. “I’ve been through it before. Mentally you can’t let down.”

As far as Manager Bill Russell is concerned, there is no reason for his club to let down.

“We’re not intimidated by the Rockies,” Russell said. “We feel we can put up big numbers just like they can. It’s tough to manage here. It’s tough to pitch here. But you love to hit here.”

With so many hits and so many runs, individual performances tend to get lost, sort of like spectacular plays in an NBA game. No time to savor the last one with another swing of the bat coming up.

Nevertheless, a few deserve mention:

--Dodger third baseman Todd Zeile hit two home runs and had four hits and a walk. It was his second two-homer game of the season, the other coming against the Angels, and the eighth of his career. He has 19 homers this season. The four hits tied a career high.

--Colorado right fielder Larry Walker, who entered the game as the league’s leading hitter with a .406 batting average, improved on that with a four-hit night in six at-bats to boost his average to .411. And less than half the season remains. It was the fifth time this season and 17th in his career that Walker has had four hits.

--Dodger catcher Mike Piazza had four hits and four runs batted in, needing only a triple for the cycle. It was the third time this season he has gotten four hits in a game and the 13th time in his career.

--Dodger shortstop Greg Gagne got two singles in six at-bats, extending his career-high hitting streak to 15 games.

--Dodger center fielder Brett Butler had four hits.

Before the game, Russell watched balls sail out of the park in batting practice and talked about the need to resist yanking a pitcher in this hurler’s horror house.

“You’ve got to have patience,” Russell said, “or you’ll go through your whole bullpen.”

Both managers showed admirable restraint when the respective starters, Pedro Astacio of the Dodgers and Darren Holmes of the Rockies, began boosting opposing batting averages as well as their own ERAs. But soon, the inevitable march to the bullpen began.

It was hard to tell when batting practice ended and the game began.

Butler and Roger Cedeno opened the game with back-to-back singles and Piazza followed with a line shot into the left-field stands for his 19th home run and his third in the five games since the All-Star break. The Dodgers added another run on Zeile’s first home run.

In most ballparks, when a visiting team scores four times in the first inning, fans tend to fear the game may already be lost. In Coors Field, they regard it more like a football game. The visiting team scored on its opening drive. Now, it’s time to see what the home team can do offensively.

Sure enough, the Rockies responded with four runs of their own in the bottom of the first and another Coors classic was underway.