It’s Splitsville for Dodgers After Defeat

Bill DeLury has been the Dodgers’ traveling secretary for 18 years. In all that time, he had never lost more than one bus on a trip.

Until now.

On the just-concluded eight-game trip, he lost two. A team bus leaving Denver lost its transmission. Another in Atlanta was disabled when an electric gate at the airport crashed into it.

Talk about symbolism.

Nobody was hurt in either bus mishap, but the Dodgers lost one player after another to injuries or illness on this trip, the trainer’s room as crowded as the dugout.

So when Atlanta Brave shortstop Jeff Blauser drove a 2-1 Darren Dreifort pitch between center fielder Roger Cedeno and right fielder Raul Mondesi in the 10th inning Monday afternoon at Turner Field to give the Braves a 5-4 victory, most of the Dodgers were satisfied to get on the plane home with a split of the eight games.

“We could have easily been 5-3,” Manager Bill Russell said. “But we showed determination. We depended on guys who don’t normally play and I’m pleased with their performance. You can’t ask for anything more than 4-4. I’ll take it.”

The Dodgers wound up taking two games from the Colorado Rockies, losing two to the Florida Marlins and splitting four against the Braves.

They did so despite the loss, for various periods, of catcher Mike Piazza (strained hamstring), Cedeno (sprained wrist), shortstop Greg Gagne (viral infection) and shortstop Tripp Cromer (bruised hand.) And that’s not even mentioning the continuing presence on the disabled list of starters Ramon Martinez and Ismael Valdes.

Still, the Dodgers had to shake their collective heads at the thought of losing Monday even though Atlanta starter Tom Glavine left in the sixth inning because of a slightly pulled left hamstring.

It isn’t every day you get let off the hook when facing a former Cy Young Award winner.

When Glavine left, the score was tied at 3-3. Atlanta had taken the early lead on a first-inning RBI single by Ryan Klesko and a second-inning RBI single by Michael Tucker.

Mondesi shoved the Dodgers in front in the third inning with one swing, hitting a shot down the right-field line with two men aboard that hugged the line and sneaked around the foul-pole into the first few rows of seats for his 21st homer.

“I thought it was foul until I saw the umpire wave,” Mondesi said.

Blauser got his club even again on a fourth-inning RBI double against Dodger starter Hideo Nomo, who struggled on the hot, humid afternoon, giving up three runs and nine hits in six innings. He struck out six and walked three.

A good measure of how much Nomo labored was the fact he reached the 100-pitch mark with one out in fifth, hitting 114 by the time he retreated to the cool showers.

Fred McGriff’s home run to center off reliever Scott Radinsky in the seventh, his 13th, put the Braves back on top.

But Eric Karros answered for the Dodgers in the eighth, hitting his team-high 23rd off Chad Fox to tie the score again.

The Dodgers held off the Braves by pulling off double plays in the eighth and the ninth.

And it seemed they would again escape in the 10th after the Braves, with runners on the corners and one out, appeared to have run themselves out of the inning. Pinch-hitter Mike Mordecai hit a grounder to third. Pinch-runner Rafael Belliard, though not forced, gave up Atlanta’s spot on third by taking off for the plate, where he was easily tagged out by catcher Tom Prince.

But all was forgiven a moment later when Blauser, batting .341, found a spot in the outfield just beyond the reach of Cedeno and Mondesi.

Said Blauser: “I was hoping it would slice away from the outfielders. Fortunately, the right fielder was pinched in [near the right-field line] to where it got away from him. I thought the center fielder had a shot at it.”

Instead, the Dodgers go home with a split.

“All things considered,” Karros said, “it could have been a lot worse.”