Dodgers Send Get-Well Win

It would be melodramatic to say that the Dodgers did it for Davey on Sunday. But it would be true.

The Dodgers, playing without Manager Davey Johnson, who was hospitalized earlier in the day with an irregular heartbeat, sleepwalked through the first seven innings of their game against the Pittsburgh Pirates before breaking out with a six-run eighth.

It was enough to send the Dodgers to a 7-3 victory over the Pirates in front of 34,116 at Dodger Stadium.

“Any time something like that happens within a family, sure that’s a distraction,” said Dodger bench coach Jim Tracy, who has taken over Johnson’s managerial duties in his absence. “I think he knows that I would do things the same way he does them. So that’s what I tried to do.”

Dodger starter Eric Gagne, the subject of trade rumors, said Johnson was on the players’ minds all game, even with their flat early-inning play.

“We knew we were going to win,” said Gagne, who did not figure in the decision after giving up three runs and six hits while walking three and striking out three in six innings. “All of our thoughts were with him.

“Davey’s a great coach. Everybody likes him around here. We wanted to pull for him and have a great game for him.”

While the Dodgers used Johnson as inspiration, it didn’t hurt that the Pirate bullpen imploded. That could be attributed, in part, to a move made by Tracy, who had not managed a game since 1994 when he was with Ottawa, the triple-A affiliate of the Montreal Expos.

Down 3-1 in the seventh, Tracy had Mark Grudzielanek, who had missed the previous six games with a viral infection, step into the on-deck circle.

The vision of Grudzielanek, who has a team-high 107 hits, coming in as a pinch-hitter for left-handed hitting Alex Cora seemingly prompted Pittsburgh Manager Gene Lamont to pull his left-handed starter, Jimmy Anderson, who had been having his way with the Dodgers up to that point.

Although Grudzielanek struck out, the move set the stage for the eighth-inning Dodger outburst, one in which the home team sent 11 batters to the plate and Pirate relievers walked three of the first five.

“You put a guy with 107 hits on deck and if I’m sitting on the other side,” Tracy said, “I get a little worried too.”

With the win, the Dodgers (46-44) jumped into a third-place tie with the rained-out Colorado Rockies and avoided falling to .500 for the first time since April 8, when they were 3-3. It was also the 28th comeback win of the season for the Dodgers, only their sixth when trailing after the seventh inning. And it was the first time the Dodgers, who evened their home record at 21-21, won without a home run since June 7, when they beat the Texas Rangers, 11-6, in Arlington.

Anderson, however, was in a prime position to get the win for the Pirates after giving up one unearned run and three hits in 6 2/3 innings. But the Pirates suffered their fifth consecutive loss, a season high, to fall to 38-52.

Dodger reliever Terry Adams (4-3) picked up the win, and Pirate reliever Mike Williams (2-2) was charged with the loss.

The three runs given up by Gagne came on a first-inning bases-loaded walk and solo home runs by John Vander Wal and Wil Cordero, in the fourth and six innings, respectively.

The Dodgers scored their first run in the seventh when Kevin Elster’s double to the left-field corner scored Todd Hollandsworth, who had reached base on a fielder’s choice.

In the eighth, Hollandsworth’s bases-loaded single broke a 3-3 tie.

“Everybody obviously was down a bit,” said Hollandsworth, who scored two runs, “but we knew we had a job to do.”