Mondesi Can Breathe a Big Sigh of Relief

Relax.

That’s what Dodger outfielder Raul Mondesi had to keep telling himself. That’s what others on the team from Manager Bill Russell on down had been telling him.

Mired in a massive season-opening slump, Mondesi had been eager and overswinging, pulling nearly every pitch.

Relax.

That’s what hitting coach Reggie Smith had been telling Mondesi when the Dodger outfielder went out early Sunday afternoon for extra batting practice.

Relax.

That was what Mondesi knew he had to do when he came to bat in the 10th inning of Sunday night’s game against the Houston Astros with his club trailing by a run.

Staring out at Houston reliever Billy Wagner, Mondesi knew what was coming. The same thing that had been coming steadily since Wagner took the mound in the ninth inning: Fastballs in the 95-mph range.

Mondesi took a pitch that sailed out of the strike zone for a ball.

Relax.

When the next pitch hit the outside corner of the plate, Mondesi swung and almost immediately threw his arms up in triumph as he watched the ball sail over the left-center field fence and land about 10 rows up, 435 feet away, giving the Dodgers a 7-6 victory in front of a celebrating crowd of 33,429.

After trailing, 4-1 and 5-2, the Dodgers came up with a run in the ninth and two in the 10th to pull out a victory that moved them within a game of .500 at 5-6 and enabled them to stay 4 1/2 games back of the San Diego Padres in the National League West.

Coming off the best season of his career, one in which he became the first Dodger to hit 30 homers and steal 30 bases, Mondesi came into the game batting only .200 and was zero for eight with runners in scoring position.

“I feel much better now,” said Mondesi after hitting the first game-winning homer of his Dodger career in this, his sixth season with the club.

“But I feel I’m going to have a good year. I have a lot of confidence in myself. I know what I can do.”

Mondesi’s heroics were necessary because of the struggles of Chan Ho Park.

Park threw 80 pitches, only 40 for strikes, before leaving with two men aboard and nobody out in the fourth inning. He gave up eight hits, five runs, four of them earned, and walked four.

Carl Everett singled and doubled--two of the four hits he had--to drive in two runs off Park, and Moises Alou drove in two of his own on a double and an infield out. Derek Bell accounted for the other run off Park with a sacrifice fly.

But the Dodgers kept pecking away.

Trailing 2-0 in the second, they got on the scoreboard with a a sacrifice fly by Trenidad Hubbard. Trailing 4-1 in the third, they got another run across on an RBI single by Todd Hollandsworth. Trailing 5-2 in the sixth, they cut the margin to a single run on a RBI double by Todd Zeile and Mondesi’s single.

The score stayed 5-4 until the ninth. And, with Wagner on the mound throwing bullets, it looked as if might end that way.

Wagner gave up a leadoff single to Paul Konerko and a sacrifice moved Matt Luke, who ran for Konerko, to second. But Wagner, bearing down, struck out Juan Castro on three pitches and got two quick strikes on pinch-hitter Mike Devereaux.

But Devereaux caught up to a Wagner pitch and hit it solidly enough to drive a sinking liner to left. The ball bounced just in front of a charging Alou to send home the tying run.

Alou hit a liner of his own leading off the 10th, but no one caught up with that one. His home run off reliever Antonio Osuna put the Astros back on top, 6-5.

Mike Piazza walked with one out in the 10th and, with two out, up came Mondesi.

“I thought it was a pretty good pitch,” said Wagner (0-2). “A big boy like that should hit it out.”

He hasn’t done so for a while. But Mondesi hopes he will now be one of the big boys on the Dodgers once again.

If so, he can really relax.