Dodgers Fall From First Place

By JASON REID

Aug. 12, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

PHILADELPHIA —

The Dodgers are moving in the wrong direction in a tight three-team divisional race.

They have lost three in a row and dropped from first place in the National League West with a 7-3 loss Saturday afternoon to the Philadelphia Phillies before 25,344 at Veterans Stadium.

Robert Person (10-6) pitched seven solid innings and Travis Lee hit a grand slam in the first against Eric Gagne (4-5) to help the surprising Phillies (64-52) move into a first-place tie with the Atlanta Braves in the East.

“There’s a long way to go,” said Manager Jim Tracy, whose club dropped to 2-3 on the trip.

“There’s too many games left. There’s too many games in your division, there’s so many things that can happen over the course of these last 40-plus games.

“The important thing for us to do is bounce back [today], win a baseball game, take a .500 road trip home with us and get back to work on Tuesday. When you’re in a situation like this, that’s exactly what you have to do.”

On Saturday, the Dodgers (65-52) had only five hits, committed two errors that contributed to a run in the fourth and pitched poorly in their eighth loss in 12 games. Relievers Giovanni Carrara and Mike Trombley gave up solo homers to Johnny Estrada and Scott Rolen, respectively.

It was another bad day for the Dodgers, who are tied for second place with the San Francisco Giants, a half-game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“The home run ball hurt us again today,” Tracy said. “They account six of their runs with three long balls--a grand slam and two solo shots.”

But the Dodgers said umpire Brian Runge was the main reason they dropped from first place for only the second time in 16 days.

They openly criticized Runge’s wide strike zone that prompted several players to react in disgust after called strikeouts.

“It was a tough day,” Tracy said. “It appeared to me the zone was wide. It obviously was wide and it was wide on both sides. That’s as far as I want to go with it.”

Runge set the tone on a called strikeout of Gary Sheffield that ended the Dodger half of the first.

TV replays appeared to show the pitch was wide, igniting a long argument between the umpire and left fielder that ended only after Tracy, first-base coach John Shelby, Paul Lo Duca, Marquis Grissom and Chad Kreuter interceded and restrained Sheffield as Runge pursued him along the third-base line.

“These guys are young umpires and I don’t know what their problems are, but we have a right to enforce our opinion,” Sheffield said. “They’re kind of taking the bat out of your hands. He told me, ‘Don’t show me up again,’ and I said, ‘Well, don’t show me up.’ Going up there and [calling] strike three without me swinging is showing me up, especially if it’s not over the plate.

“Coming out of spring training, we’re figuring the high strike or the low strike, we can handle that as long as it’s over the plate. When guys don’t have to throw the ball over the plate it makes their job a lot easier.

“It’s to the point now where you don’t even want to get one strike because the second one and the third one is a lot easier to get nowadays. You don’t really know where to look for the ball.”

Tracy also had a heated exchange with Runge in the third when he ruled that Gagne did not attempt to avoid a pitch while being hit attempting to bunt.

Gagne then sacrificed successfully, moving the runners to second and third, and Lo Duca provided the Dodgers’ first run with a groundout, cutting the lead to 4-1.

But Mark Grudzielanek struck out looking and slammed his batting helmet to the ground after staring at Runge.

Lo Duca was also caught looking with runners on first and third with two out in the seventh.

“He called a pitch a foot outside on me, that’s the flat truth, you can look at it on tape and you can ask anyone you want,” Lo Duca said.

“We got frustrated early. Even though [Person] wasn’t throwing strikes, we started swinging at ‘em, and that probably put us in a hole too. It’s tough. I just don’t understand when 12 guys are coming back to the dugout complaining.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Staffing Problems

The main culprit for the Dodgers’ 4-8 skid? Pitching. A look at statistics over the 12 games:

Chan Ho Park: 0-2, 6.39 ERA

Luke Prokopec: 0-1, 9.72 ERA

Terry Adams: 1-1, 4.76 ERA

Jesse Orosco: 0-1, 5.42 ERA

Matt Herges: 0-1, 8.31 ERA

Terry Mulholland: 1-0, 11.57 ERA

Team: 4-8, 4.75 ERA

Team before last 12 games: 61-44, 4.15 ERA

NL WEST STANDINGS