Park, Dodgers Suffer Missed Opportunities

How bad are things going for the Dodgers?

So bad that Sunday at Dodger Stadium, with a chance to pick up much-needed ground in the wild-card race, they lost a potential run in the sixth inning of a 2-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates on a turn of the shoulders, a twist of the hips and a twist in the rules from one part of the world to another.

And they gave up a run in the second thanks to two balls whose combined distance wouldn’t have reached the outfield.

That’s not to say that plenty of the credit shouldn’t go to Pittsburgh left-hander Chris Peters (6-8), who held the Dodgers to a run and four hits in seven innings before a crowd of 43,227.

Or to Pirate catcher Jason Kendall, who hit the game-winning homer in the fifth inning.

And the blame for the defeat can be spread around the entire Dodger lineup, which failed to give much support to losing pitcher Chan Ho Park (10-6), who failed in his bid to win his 12th consecutive decision at home, thus tying the Los Angeles Dodger record held by Orel Hershiser.

But the play in the sixth has to particularly eat at the Dodgers because it was so strange and unnecessary.

Down 2-0, Dodger Manager Glenn Hoffman let Park bat to lead off the inning and Park responded with a solid single to right.

But it didn’t turn out to be that solid when right fielder Jose Guillen, whose right arm draws the same kind of respect as that of the Dodgers’ Raul Mondesi, fired a bullet that cleared the head of his first baseman, Kevin Young, and would have gone all the way to the field-level seats had not Kendall hauled it down.

At this moment, Park flirted with the idea of going to second. Actually, he did more than flirt. He turned his body in the direction of second base for a mini second, then thought better of it and continued down the first-base line well past the bag.

No harm, no foul, Park figured. As long as he didn’t cross the base line, he could do whatever he wanted.

Wrong.

“That is the way I learned the rules in Korea ever since I was young,” Park said.

But over here, any movement toward second means you have committed yourself and can be tagged out if you don’t get back to first.

While Park jogged casually back to the bag, Kendall fired to Young, who applied the tag.

Just your routine rightfielder-to-catcher-to first baseman putout, or, if you’re scoring at home, 9-2-3.

Park argued, Hoffman argued, but there was really no argument to make.

“I didn’t know the rules,” Park said. “When I came back to the dugout, they explained it to me. Maybe I should study because maybe there are other rules I don’t know.

“It was a stupid thing.”

And perhaps costly. After Young grounded to second, Mark Grudzielanek doubled into deep left-center.

Would that have resulted in a run if Park reached first safely?

The Dodgers would have loved to have had the opportunity to find out.

Instead, they scored their only run in the seventh inning on a home run down the left-field line by Bobby Bonilla, his sixth.

That made it a 2-1 game, and that didn’t bode well for the Pirates, who had lost 10 consecutive one-run games and were 1-38 going into Sunday night in games in which they scored two runs or less.

The first of those Pirate runs Sunday came in the second inning following a double by Aramis Ramirez. Lou Collier followed with a ground ball that third baseman Adrian Beltre dove for only to have it bounce off his glove to Grudzielanek. Grudzielanek had only one option and that failed as he lost a race to the third-base bag with Ramirez.

The Pirates lost Ramirez on the play, the third baseman forced to leave because of a hyperextended shoulder.

On the next play, Peters laid down a Bunt, Beltre picked it up and tried to get Doug Strange, who was running for Ramirez. Instead, Strange got back to third, all hands were safe and Strange then scored on a sacrifice fly to left by Tony Womack.

Had they won, the Dodgers would have moved to within three games of the Chicago Cubs in the run for the wild-card spot.

Instead, a missed tag here, a missed rule there and the Dodgers miss yet another chance to make a move, leaving themselves in ever-increasing danger of missing the playoffs altogether.

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* PUZZLED MONDESI

The constant heckling is growing old for Dodger outfielder Raul Mondesi, especially since he was cleared in arrest. C8