Johnson Can’t Even Come to Own Defense in Off-Year

Brandon Johnson didn’t reach his seat at Chavez Ravine until the seventh inning Tuesday, a late arrival even for a Dodger fan. But it was his first game and, at a mere 2 1/2 weeks old, he has a lot of time to work on his timing.

Coincidence or not, the Dodgers showed up at about the same time he did. His father, Charles, led off the eighth with a double and later scored the Dodgers’ first run. He also walked with the bases loaded in the ninth in an unconventional rally that fell short, 8-6, against the Florida Marlins.

Fortunately, Brandon wasn’t there to see his father hit into a double play in the third, pop up to third base with a runner on in the fifth and let two Darren Dreifort pitches get away from him behind the plate, although official scorer Larry Kahn later amended his earlier ruling and called one of them a wild pitch.

The Dodgers knew when Johnson arrived from Florida in May in the Mike Piazza deal they weren’t getting another Piazza as a hitter. But they did believe they were getting the game’s best defensive catcher. That’s the reason they were so sure they would be able to justify the trade of a potential Hall of Fame player.

The fact he has turned out to be merely one of the best so concerned Tom Lasorda that he recently asked Dodger trainers to check Johnson’s eyesight.

Johnson told them it wasn’t necessary.

“I don’t know what it is, but it’s not physical,” he said after Tuesday’s game. “I’m just not as sharp as I have been in the past.”

No catcher has been as sharp as Johnson was in 1997, when he didn’t commit an error during the regular season and was charged with only one passed ball while earning his third consecutive Gold Glove.

In comparison, his eight errors and three passed balls this season “make it seem like a horrible year,” he said.

It’s not quite that. Since Johnson began catching them, Dodger pitchers have improved their earned-run average from 4.11 to 3.77 and opposing baserunners are stealing .62 bases per game as compared to 1.4 previously.

Still, Johnson said he’s frustrated.

“I expect to do what I did last year,” he said. “I’m not doing that right now.”

Johnson is optimistic about the future. A South Florida native, he played at the University of Miami and spent his first five professional seasons in the Marlins’ organization before they traded him. He said the adjustment to Los Angeles was difficult, made more so because his wife, Rhonda, was eight months pregnant when she joined him. But, he said, he’s more settled now.

If some of his former Marlin teammates are saying he would like to leave, he said they didn’t hear it from him.

“Even when I was in Florida, I always said that if I had to play someplace else, this would be the place,” he said.

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Ten days ago, with series coming up against Montreal, Pittsburgh and Florida, the chances of the Dodgers’ gaining on a playoff berth looked good. . . .

But, in the first seven games, their record is a pathetic 2-5. . . .

They’ve seldom looked less inspired than they did during the first seven innings of Tuesday’s loss to the Marlins. . . .

It wasn’t the heat. . . .

It was the humiliation. . . .

“Have you seen enough?” Vin Scully asked writers in the press box during his seventh-inning break. “Have you had enough?” . . .

Maybe it’s time for Glenn Hoffman to breathe some fire, if he has it in him. . . .

The only thing he would finish first in now is a Bill Russell look-alike contest. . . .

Former Marlins now playing for the Dodgers were one for 10 at the plate. . . .

Dodgers fans were particularly abusive toward Bobby Bonilla because of his play in left field. . . .

It will get worse for Boo-nilla before it gets better after he challenged them by saying he’s worked tougher crowds than this while playing in New York. . . .

“They’ve got a long way to go before they’re as loud as New Yorkers,” he said. . . .

Like that’s a bad thing. . . .

Fans should give him a break considering the injuries to his wrist and ankle. He would be spending the rest of the season in rehab if the Dodgers weren’t desperate for his bat. . . .

But Dodger fans were in an ornery mood Tuesday. They even booed themselves when attendance was announced at 35,270. . . .

They should have been angry. If they were going to take an afternoon off from work, they should have gone to the beach. . . .

Dodger management tried to tell them. It was “Beach Towel Day.” . . .

The best thing you can say for the Dodgers is that they haven’t lost much ground in the race for the wild card. . . .

Or, as the San Francisco Examiner called it, the “mild card.” . . .

Anyone who speculates Jim Leyland will manage the Dodgers next season doesn’t know Jim Leyland. . . .

He’s not an L.A. kind of guy. . . .

He’s not even a Miami kind of guy. . . .

His wife was so unhappy in South Florida that she took their two children and moved back to Pittsburgh last summer. . . .

Based on the East Coast, Leyland can still see them about 10 times a season. . . .

He couldn’t do that if he were managing in Los Angeles. . . .

He probably wouldn’t consider moving farther west than Colorado, which might offer him and Marlin General Manager Dave Dombrowski a package deal to replace Don Baylor and Bob Gebhard. . . .

It shouldn’t, however, be assumed Leyland will leave Florida after this season. He’s optimistic the latest bidder for the Marlins, Don Henry, would spend the money to rebuild the team as quickly as Wayne Huizenga took it apart.

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While wondering if Lasorda is sure Bobby Valentine is locked into his contract with the Mets, I was thinking: The rise in World Series ticket prices shouldn’t concern Dodger fans this season, some Dodgers aren’t even acting like they care, boo.