Fast Start Crucial to Balance of Power in West

Long a marked team, the Dodgers figure to be more so, playing the unbalanced schedule of 2001.

Doesn’t familiarity breed contempt? Won’t every team be playing 18 or 19 games against each team in its own division, rather than the 12 or 13 in the previously balanced schedule?

“Obviously, the rivalries are going to be intensified, and that should make for some great baseball,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said.

“It’s going to be the way it used to be and should be, and what’s neat about it is that you’ll have a chance to win or lose in your own division.”

The Dodgers open at home on April 2 with a strange one-game visit by the Milwaukee Brewers of the National League Central, then play 18 consecutive games against West rivals Arizona, San Francisco and San Diego.

The entire September schedule features division games.

It long has been said in baseball that the games of April are just as important as those of September, but whether anybody really believed it is questionable.

Now, matched against division rivals from the bell, those April games are just as important, and a fast start seems imperative.

“We’ve talked about getting after it from the first pitch,” Tracy said. “I don’t think that will be a problem. We’ve worked on that mind-set. We’ve already flipped that switch.”

Said General Manager Kevin Malone, “I think it’s important to set a tone, and our starting pitching should allow us to do that. To a large degree, you’re going to be able to control your destiny more so than in the past.

“We’re playing almost half of our games against teams from the division. In each of those games, you can pick up or lose a full game, instead of a half-game. There’s more at stake almost every night.”

It’s that way in every division, but the NL West might be the most competitive.

In fact, said Colorado General Manager Dan O’Dowd, “the unbalanced schedule could be a detriment to the won-lost records” of the division teams and hurt their wild-card chances.

“What I mean is that the division is so strong, and the pitching so good, that we may end up beating up on each other,” O’Dowd said. “The third- or fourth-place team in the West could be as good as a first- or second-place team in another division.”

Only the San Diego Padres seem excluded from the parity and payroll commitment in the West. The Padres have a payroll of $37 million, less than the Dodgers are paying their rotation.

The Dodgers’ payroll is $111 million, followed by Arizona’s at $83 million (of which $30 million is deferred), Colorado’s at $70 million and San Francisco’s at $62.5 million.

It would not be a surprise if that Dodger payroll, the industry-infuriating signings of Kevin Brown and Shawn Green, and all of Malone’s shtick about a new sheriff in town have given division rivals an even stronger motivation to knock the Dodgers off--although they always have been a favorite target.

Whether it was envy of their success and stability in a long-ago era or their perceived arrogance under Tom Lasorda, when they never were defeated by a better team but always had an excuse for losing, opponents long have delighted in derailing the Dodgers.

“It’s no secret that we’ve played some intense games with the Giants, Padres, Rockies and Diamondbacks,” veteran first baseman Eric Karros said. “When you have a schedule where you’re playing those teams [76 times], it’s probably going to be a little more intense than when you’re playing Florida and Montreal. Any time you play a division game now, it means a lot more, but I don’t know if we’re any more of a marked team.”

In other words, Karros said, he isn’t sure that a comment by Malone or their high payroll will provide West rivals with added motivation.

“I don’t think that’s the type of thing that’s going to prompt a team to say, ‘Oh, we’re going to get you for that,’ ” Karros said.

“I wouldn’t say that anything Kevin says, or anyone else says, is bulletin-board material as much as it provides for some comedy for the other teams.”

Certainly, there has been some serious money spent in the NL West, especially on pitching. The Dodgers kept Darren Dreifort away from the Rockies with a five-year, $55-million contract and added Andy Ashby at $22 million for three years. The Rockies, with an eye on the new format, invested about $180 million in Mike Hampton, Denny Neagle and Ron Villone.

Those three pitchers have a combined record of 52-21 against the four other NL West teams. Add Brian Bohanon and Pedro Astacio and the Colorado rotation is 82-49 against the West, with Hampton and Villone a combined 20-2 against defending champion San Francisco.

“Obviously, we looked at that,” O’Dowd said, alluding to the combined record of Hampton, Neagle and Villone against the West. “That certainly added to their attraction, but we didn’t want to over-think the situation. Our primary objective was simply to strengthen our rotation with quality arms.”

The Rockies now have veteran starting depth to deal with Coors Field and a division in which Arizona has a rotation featuring Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, the Giants lead with Shawn Estes and Livan Hernandez, the Dodgers have Brown, Chan Ho Park, Dreifort, Ashby and Ramon Martinez, and even the Padres can compete on the mound with the promising Matt Clement and Adam Eaton to complement veterans Woody Williams and Sterling Hitchcock.

“I think we’ve found out the last two years that the National League, unlike the American League, is not about offense as much as it is pitching, especially in the West,” Malone said. “Everybody talks about the lack of pitching, but just about every club in this division has a complete rotation. There should be some great matchups, and a lot of close and faster games, and that should keep everybody happy.”

NOTEBOOK

* Picking up where Bill Bavasi left off, Bill Stoneman’s aggressive signings of Troy Glaus, Tim Salmon and Bengie Molina are to be applauded, but where was that aggressiveness during the off-season, when the Angels had those holes--and still do, to an extent--at shortstop and the top of their rotation? Of course, Glaus, Salmon and Molina all took less than market value in trade for the security of four-year contracts.

* Pitching may be the name of the game and in short supply, but the Chicago White Sox, in pursuit of the American League Central title last year and now trying to repeat, have traded 14 pitchers since last July--three to the Dodgers for Antonio Osuna--and are prepared to trade more during the season, if need be.

Scouts insist that the White Sox still have the best pitching prospects in the minors, and new General Manager Ken Williams says, “We did win 95 games last year, but that wasn’t enough. We have evolved as a club and an organization to the point where we think we can compete at a championship level. To do that you have to make a move or two that is a little uncomfortable in regards to giving up prospect-type players.”

Among those given the best chance to haunt the White Sox are new Dodger Gary Majewski, a former second-round draft pick who is 21; Aaron Myette, now with Texas; Juan Figueroa, Baltimore, and Chad Bradford, Oakland.

* The expanded strike zone may impact offense, but Manager Larry Bowa of the Philadelphia Phillies insists the ball is livelier than ever.

“Regardless of what they say, you touch a baseball now and you can feel a pulse,” Bowa said, hoping he feels a pulse from an offense that was last in the National League in home runs last year and 14th among 16 teams in each of the two previous years.

* Kerry Wood was clocked at 98 mph in his last Cactus League appearance Tuesday and appears all the way back from his elbow reconstruction of 1999. He’ll pitch the Chicago Cubs’ opener and insists his newly strengthened elbow is accompanied by a new approach. No longer will he chase the Chicago night life. One of his running mates, Mark Grace, is now with Arizona, but, said Woods, “I also know it’s time to put up some big numbers. I’ve taken a different approach, a serious approach. I’ve been in the big leagues for three years and won 20-something games. I’m tired of losing.”

* Kevin Millwood, a disappointing 10-13 last year after going 35-15 in his first two seasons with the Atlanta Braves, has been pounded in Florida, compounding the slow return of John Smoltz from elbow reconstruction. Millwood’s misery prompted pitching coach Leo Mazzone to invite Don Sutton down from the broadcasting booth to help the right-hander with his mechanics, a major admission of concern given that Mazzone and Sutton aren’t members of a mutual-admiration society. Sutton has been working on Millwood’s stride, and Millwood is scheduled to test it again Monday.

* A sexually explicit interview with Pittsburgh Pirate pitcher Kris Benson and his wife, Anna, in the new Penthouse was dismissed by Manager Lloyd McClendon, who said, “All I care about is what Kris Benson does between the lines, not what he does between the sheets.”