Park Gets by With Help of His Friends

After keeping Ismael Valdes and Kevin Brown on a tightrope, the Dodgers gave Chan Ho Park a net.

Not that he needed it.

Park gave up two hits in eight innings Sunday night in pitching the Dodgers to a 6-1 win over Philadelphia before 38,150 at Dodger Stadium.

Sunday brought win No. 15 for Park, a personal best, and he should have five more starts. And he’s 11-5 lifetime during September and October.

Could he become the first Dodger to win 20 in a season since Ramon Martinez in 1990?

“I can’t think about that,” Park said. “I have to think about my next start, about the first pitch of my next start. If I win 20, I’ll buy you dinner.”

He laughed the laugh of a pitcher who has won four games in a row. Of one who is 6-1 with two no-decisions since July 20. Of one whose earned-run average in that span is 1.95.

Of one who walked only 11 batters in August.

Of one who walked seven Sunday night.

“He occasionally would get a little lax,” Manager Davey Johnson said. “He would walk a guy, and then he would just dominate. It seemed like he would walk the easier hitters, to be honest with you.”

Catcher Chad Kreuter sought to excuse the occasional lapses--”He was trying to keep from making mistakes from the middle in [on the plate],” he said--but Park was having nothing to do with that.

“No, I’m not happy about the walks,” he said. “I’d rather have them hit it, make them run hard.”

But defense kept the Phillies honest.

“I had some luck,” Park said. “I would let somebody get on, and then the defense would get a double play. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Reminded that he started double plays in the third and fifth innings, he was abashed.

“I don’t want to think about the walks,” he insisted. “Not during the game, anyway. I want to concentrate on the next pitch.”

That he did, and many of the next pitches were breaking balls and changeups, both of which he has developed increasing command of during the second half of the season.

“We knew from the first couple of innings that it was going to be hard to see,” Philadelphia Manager Terry Francona said of the 5 p.m. start. “Then Park, we’ve always seen him good. He’s always been tough on us.”

Park is 5-1 with a 2.42 ERA against the Phillies.

That he had some runs to work with Sunday night helped too.

After the Dodgers scored one run for Valdes and no runs for Brown in their Friday and Saturday starts, Park was the beneficiary of a comparative largess.

He worked with a 1-0 lead after one inning when Gary Sheffield drove in Tom Goodwin with a single. The lead became 2-0 on Adrian Beltre’s 16th homer, a shot over the right-center field wall in the fifth. And 3-0 that same inning when Mark Grudzielanek drove in Kreuter with a single.

Shawn Green’s homer in the sixth gave the Dodgers 187 for the season, matching last year’s total and only four behind the all-time Los Angeles Dodger record, set in 1977.

The Brooklyn mark is 208, set in 1953.

Sheffield’s RBI single and Green’s run-scoring groundout in the seventh inning finished the Dodger offense.

And the eighth inning finished Park, who said he was physically spent even though he had given up only two hits.

But the walks and occasional difficulty caused him to throw 131 pitches.

He was done.

“They asked me after the seventh inning if I could go one more,” he said. “I said I could, but I was tired after the eighth.”

It was left to reliever Terry Adams to struggle in the ninth, giving up a run and setting up Jeff Shaw for an inexpensive save, his 24th.

With the Dodgers’ elimination from the pennant race becoming only a product of time, there remains individual achievement as a motivator.

Like 20 victories for Park, who leads the club in wins, three better than Brown’s runner-up total.

“Why not 21?” said Kreuter, laughing. “Put him in the bullpen on the last day.”