Candiotti a Hit, but It’s With Astros

Are the Dodgers choking?

“It seems to me,” one club employee said, watching the players eat in the clubhouse, “that nobody is having trouble digesting their food.”

Maybe not, but it’s pretty tough for them to swallow a few other things lately, such as their 5-1 loss to the Houston Astros on Saturday night at the Astrodome, the Dodgers’ fifth defeat in a row and eighth in their last 11 games.

Talk about hard to digest.

It would be easy to understand if the Dodgers got sick to their stomachs watching themselves go from 2 1/2 games ahead of the San Francisco Giants to a game behind in less than two weeks, easy to see them get indigestion from watching the Giants lose, as they did to the Florida Marlins on Saturday, and then failing to pick up any ground.

Nobody seems able to stop this slide right now, which is threatening to turn into an avalanche. Not the pitchers. Not the hitters.

“We’re just a bad team right now,” catcher Mike Piazza said.

And not one blessed with the best of timing.

With all the other starting pitchers struggling to get into the sixth inning, right-handed knuckleballer Tom Candiotti had been the most consistent.

But of all times, it was Saturday, with the Giant loss staring at the Dodgers from the Astrodome scoreboard and Astro right-hander Darryl Kile about to stare at them from the mound, that Candiotti wound up with a knuckleball he couldn’t control.

Wild?

Candiotti (10-6) was so wild, he put himself in the record books and took the Dodgers out of the game before they even got into it.

The Astros sent 10 men to the plate in the first inning, three of whom got hits, three of whom got hit and four of whom scored in an inning that also included two passed balls and an error.

It began normally enough with a Craig Biggio single down the third-base line.

Then Candiotti’s knuckler started dancing. And so did the Astros.

Derek Bell got hit on the hip.

With Jeff Bagwell at bat, a Candiotti knuckler danced off Piazza’s glove for a passed ball to advance the runners.

Bagwell wound up striking out, but, with the way Candiotti’s knuckler was sailing, even that wasn’t a good thing for the Dodgers. The ball got away from Piazza, causing Biggio to streak to the plate. When Piazza looked up, he saw bodies heading toward home from all directions as Candiotti came over to cover.

“It was tough,” Piaza said. “All those guys were coming together. I tried to lead him [Candiotti].”

Instead, Piazza threw the ball behind the Dodger pitcher as Biggio scored.

With the ball rolling up the third-base line to Todd Zeile, Bell also scored.

Oh, and Bagwell also reached first.

Bagwell was doubled home by Sean Berry, who was subsequently singled home by Richard Hidalgo.

That was the end of the first-inning scoring, but not of Candiotti’s difficulties. He hit catcher Tony Eusebio on the forearm and Kile on the letters before finally getting Biggio to end the inning.

“Innings like that are why there are not a whole lot of knuckleballers around,” said Candiotti who has lasted 14 years in the big leagues because he has usually had much better control over the erratic pitch. “It was a crazy, crazy inning. I don’t think I’ve ever had one like that. It was a freaky, freaky thing.”

Although he hit Bell in the second inning on the elbow, Candiotti largely settled down after that.

But with Kile on the mound, it was too late.

Largely because of a sharp-breaking curve, Kile struck out a career-high 13 in eight innings, giving up a run and four hits to improve 18-6.

In the first two games of this series, the Dodgers have struck out 30 times.

Zeile got the only Dodger run Saturday by hitting his 27th homer.

So what does Manager Bill Russell do now to shake his team up, shout and scream and turn over the player’s food table?

“That would be a waste of food,” Russell said.

The way things are going, who feels like eating?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NL WEST STRETCH DRIVE

*--*

W L Pct. GB GIANTS 82 66 .554 - DODGERS 81 67 .547 1

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* Saturday: Astros 5, Dodgers 1; Marlins 8, Giants 1.

* DONE DEAL?

There is little opposition to Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Dodgers. A1