Sparkplug Is Needed, Not Just Old Battery

As part of an exclusive season-ticket plan I share with about 354 others, I have wangled seats for tonight’s game between the Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers.

For $27, I get to see the Dodgers’ best pitcher.

But, for $27, I also expect to see the Dodgers’ best player.

Just because Chan Ho Park is on the mound doesn’t mean Paul Lo Duca has to be on the bench, right?

If not consumer fraud, then it’s pennant-race foolishness.

Yet, I’m worried.

Because Park has a personal catcher, and Lo Duca ain’t it.

Park’s catcher is Chad Kreuter, and it apparently doesn’t matter that he is hitting 92 points lower than Lo Duca.

When Park pitches, Kreuter catches.

It has been that way for nearly two seasons.

It works for Park, who has become an all-star. It works for Kreuter, a 36-year-old journeyman who has found a niche.

But it increasingly doesn’t work for the Dodgers.

I’m worried about tonight, because I remember the last time Park pitched in Dodger Stadium, two weeks ago, when the Dodgers had a chance to sweep a four-game series from the San Francisco Giants.

Park pitched. Kreuter caught. Lo Duca sat. And sat. And sat.

His .500 average with six home runs against the Giants was lost.

The heart he has given this team was lost.

The game and a nine-game winning streak were also lost, 3-2.

Even thought Kreuter drove in one of the runs with a fly ball, I told Manager Jim Tracy later the decision to sit Lo Duca had cost the Dodgers what could end up being one of the most important games this season.

Judging from the number of angry e-mails and phone calls I received, I wasn’t the only one.

Tracy did not agree. But he cannot agree.

He’s in a tough position here, the toughest of his young managerial career, caught between a Park and a hard place, a real catcher-22.

Park believes he cannot pitch to anyone but Kreuter. A sensitive sort--remember how he threw a fit when teammates, following tradition, cut up his clothes his rookie season?--Park has told folks he just has more confidence in Kreuter’s ability to call a game.

Last year as a coach, Tracy watched this relationship emerge. Worried about a possible growing dilemma--this one--he decided to test it late in the spring.

On March 24 against the Baltimore Orioles in Fort Lauderdale, he paired Park and Lo Duca.

The results have stuck to Tracy like those nerdy glasses.

Four innings, 11 hits, nine earned runs.

“I realized then, to try Chan Ho with anyone other than Kreuter was risky waters,” Tracy said.

Since the start of the regular season, Park has thrown to only one catcher other than Kreuter. It was, ironically, former Dodger Mike Piazza in the All-Star game.

Park grooved Cal Ripken Jr. a pitch so fat, some actually thought he’d intentionally helped him hit that home run.

“This is not the first time in baseball that there have been these relationships,” Tracy said. “Sometimes a pitcher gets into a certain mind-set, and that’s the way it is.”

So it was with Greg Maddux and Eddie Perez in Atlanta, before Perez was injured this year and replaced by Paul Bako.

It was also that way with Steve Carlton and Tim McCarver for the Philadelphia Phillies in the late 1970s.

All of which would be a great comparison, except in neither case was the regular catcher the leader of that team. Not Bob Boone for the Phillies, nor Javy Lopez for the Braves.

Lo Duca is more than just the leader of this team. He has become its conscience.

Twice this year, in the midst of potentially season-altering losses, I have picked up the phone, prepared to make my annual “The Dodgers are done” calls.

Both times, Lo Duca prompted me to hang up.

The first time was Memorial Day, when his six hits against the Colorado Rockies led the Dodgers to a five-run comeback and an 11-10, 11-inning victory.

The second time was June 26 in San Francisco, when, after the Dodgers had blown a 5-2 lead with Kevin Brown on the mound, his six RBIs led them back from a three-run deficit to a 14-8 win.

A team unscathed and cruising to the playoffs would have the luxury of benching its best puncher.

A team with its eyes blackened and nose bloodied does not.

These Dodgers are that team. In these final two months, they need to lunge at every opening. They need Lo Duca.

OK, so even the strongest catchers require a weekly breather.

Fine, then when Park pitches, let Eric Karros rest his back and play Lo Duca at first base.

You don’t want to upset the team’s most popular veteran?

Fine, then rest Marquis Grissom, put Shawn Green in center field, and put Lo Duca in right field. He can play right field, you know. He can play just about anywhere.

“However, I would draw the line at shortstop and second base,” Tracy said with a smile.

Then the smile disappeared. Tracy noted that by putting Lo Duca anywhere other than at catcher and first base, the Dodgers would indeed be risking defense.

“You have to focus on the entire club,” Tracy said. “So when you get into areas like this, you have to ask, how much are we being hurt defensively?”

Fine. Then just tell Chan Ho Park that $100-million pitchers should come without asterisks.

As a free agent this winter, he should realize that money is not going to come with a catcher. If he is worth millions, he should be expected to pitch to anybody, so why not start now?

Of course, do the Dodgers really want to upset him like that and risk his signing elsewhere? His agent Scott Boras wouldn’t do that, would he? And it makes no difference that Kreuter is also Boras’ client, does it?

I’m not going there. I’m sick of going there.

The only place I’m going is to Dodger Stadium tonight, where I and thousands of others should be entitled to see their best player.

Chan Ho Park has certainly worked some magic this season.

But not magic so good as to make Paul Lo Duca disappear.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.