Things Are a Mile Low This Weekend at Denver

Hard to believe that the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies are conducting a four-game series in mid-June--with their summers seemingly over.

Face it.

The Rockies are dead in the National League West, and the Dodgers are close to it, struggling to keep their wild-card hopes alive.

Both managers--Bill Russell and Don Baylor--could be fired, as well as both general managers: Fred Claire and Bob Gebhard.

Colorado owner Jerry McMorris said he won’t make a decision on Baylor and Gebhard until the season is over, but “there’s plenty of blame to go around.”

“What we need to do right now is get it fixed as best we can,” he said. “I would hope we’re mature enough and professional enough that our efforts are concentrated on how to get this team playing to its highest level. The fans are getting tired of the way it is. We’ve got to start winning again.”

With improved pitching, this figured to be Colorado’s best team, McMorris said, even with the departures of first baseman Andres Galarraga, who rejected a two-year offer by the Rockies in favor of a three-year deal from the Atlanta Braves; and shortstop Walt Weiss, who also went to Atlanta rather than move to second base in Colorado.

Mike Lansing was obtained from the Montreal Expos to play second, and touted rookie Todd Helton replaced Galarraga at first. Helton couldn’t have been expected to replace Galarraga’s power production in his first full season, and hasn’t. But the power outage--the Rockies averaged close to six runs a game last year and now are averaging fewer than five--stems mainly from a dramatic home run falloff by Larry Walker and Dante Bichette, a 30-point drop in average by Ellis Burks and a surprisingly poor season by Lansing, whose work ethic has come under question.

The reduced offense has crippled the improved pitching. The earned-run average is half a run less than last year, but the results don’t show it.

Consider Darryl Kile.

The $24-million free agent has a seven-game losing streak in which three of the losses were by 2-1 scores and a fourth was by 2-0. The Rockies have scored only seven runs in the 49 innings Kile has been on the mound during the streak. This is a high-altitude and once high-octane team that has never won consistently at sea level and now can’t win at Coors Field, where it continues to play to sellouts, and McMorris worries and wonders how long that will last.

There is no easy solution, but the quiet talk among general managers is that the Rockies seem willing to deal any position player, except third baseman Vinny Castilla, shortstop Neifi Perez and first baseman Helton, before the July 31 deadline, meaning that even reigning MVP Walker, still hurting from elbow surgery in January, is available.

“We need to get younger and faster,” a club official said.

The Dodger situation is comparably bleak.

* With Ramon Martinez apparently out for the season and the Seattle Mariners still unwilling to trade Randy Johnson, there is no proven stopper in a rotation in which Chan Ho Park and Ismael Valdes are still struggling for consistency.

* There is no consistent closer, no real production from left field or third base and no indication yet that Paul Konerko is ready for major league pitching or Roger Cedeno is ready for major league fundamentals.

* In a better situation, Eric Young (thigh) and Eric Karros (knee) could recuperate on the disabled list, but they might not and this might not get better until 1999. As long as the Dodgers bury the talented Wilton Guerrero at Albuquerque and refuse to play him twice a week for the ailing Young, the only option at second base is the .190-hitting Juan Castro. And the only options for Karros at first base are Jim Eisenreich, who has yet to unwrap his Dodger killer bat, and the struggling Konerko.

* All the clubhouse talk about how the Dodgers were a better team with a better attitude without Mike Piazza--coming from the manager down--too quickly ignored Piazza’s immense production and the transitional difficulty for both players and team in adding three new players to the lineup during the season. Only Gary Sheffield has responded. Both Bobby Bonilla and Charles Johnson have been romancing the .200 Mendoza line since their acquisition, and Gold Glove Johnson has not been the panacea that rationalizing pitchers were proclaiming when they said good riddance to Piazza. The catcher, of course, can only catch what the pitchers throw, and what the hitters don’t hit. Above all, the Dodgers continue to operate in a pressure chamber.

The players must perform, and are paid well to perform, but the questions are hard to ignore and create an obviously tense environment:

Who makes the decisions? Does the manager go or stay? Can he be blamed for the obvious problems in personnel and performance?

While the neighboring Angels respond to injury-related obstacles and obvious personnel shortages with admirable aggressiveness, taking the extra base and forcing mistakes, the Dodgers can’t keep the fire lit.

Would Davey Johnson, Whitey Herzog, Sparky Anderson or Jim Fregosi initiate a spark? Would Mike Scioscia or Tom Lasorda?

Do you employ an interim manager or bring in someone now with a multiyear contract--a strong-willed Johnson or Herzog, for instance, who would want a say in front office decisions, an unlikely concession by Fox? Do you wait until the season ends, see how this plays out under the mild Russell, and go hard if necessary for a Jim Leyland or, better yet, a Davey Lopes or Dusty Baker, with their emotion and Dodger ties?

Amid management and lineup changes, heart remains a lingering perplexity with the Dodgers, an elusive ingredient since 1988.

Would a managerial change help provide it at a time when the Dodgers still have 3 1/2 months to salvage the ’98 season?

Fox and staff are weighing that question.

In the meantime, the Dodgers and Rockies gasp in mile-high Denver.