Park Is Coming UpLame in the Stretch

The news swept through the Dodger clubhouse Tuesday afternoon like a startling breeze.

Chan Ho Park’s Achilles’ tendon, suddenly strained in the middle of his game-costing, season-jeopardizing relief performance against the San Diego Padres a night earlier, had just as suddenly healed.

It’s a miracle, I tell you, a miracle.

“I think it was a cramp,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said.

Whatever. All of which means that Park, having given up 11 runs in his last 32/3 innings, will return to the mound in time for his Thursday start against the hot-hitting Arizona Diamondbacks.

An ace bandage for him, a blindfold for us.

Pardon our manners, but what has happened to the Dodgers at the start of this heated, season-ending 19-game stretch has folks broiling.

With Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Padres, they have dropped consecutive games they should have won while dropping dangerously close to the edges of contention.

It is a snowball that was formed Monday, as it has often been formed this year, with a pitcher who is supposed to stop it.

While many are rightfully befuddled at Tracy for using Park as a reliever for the first time in four years in the seventh inning in the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss, they are angrier at Park’s behavior once he took the mound in the seventh inning with the score tied.

Five batters. Three walks. One double. One single. One passed ball.

Then came that sudden injury that required poor trainer Stan Johnston’s presence at the mound, providing Park with someone to deflect the boos as they trudged to the dugout from the muck.

On Monday, Park gave up four runs in zero innings.

On Tuesday, Terry Adams gave up two fewer runs in eight more innings.

In his last four starts, Adams has given up six earned runs.

In his last four appearances, Park has given up 16 runs.

Both are free agents this winter.

Park has considered asking for $20 million a year. Adams can be acquired for less than half of that.

What to do, what to do.

With only 17 games remaining to catch the leaders in this pennant race, one thing is clear:

If Park doesn’t toughen up, the Dodgers are cooked, if they aren’t already.

His losses in consecutive important games, even if they were eight days apart, have shown what many have long suspected.

He wants to be paid as a staff anchor. Yet in pressure situations, he becomes so much flotsam.

An anchor can handle a two-hour rain delay in St. Louis. In the Dodgers’ 8-1 loss two Sundays ago, Park did not.

An ace would have adjusted to entering the game in a tough and unfamiliar situation in the seventh inning with the score tied. In the Dodgers’ loss to San Diego Monday, Park did not.

There are some in town who howled when Tracy and catcher Chad Kreuter questioned Park’s toughness after a loss to the New York Mets in August.

Don’t you see? With Kevin Brown injured, they were checking his pulse. They were pounding on his belly. They were testing his legs.

Since then, he has gone 2-2 with a 6.04 earned-run average.

Then his agent Scott Boras has the nerve to tell reporters Tuesday that the Dodgers are hurting his client by using him on three days’ rest, something that has occurred only once during that stretch.

“Many managers-Bobby Cox, Bobby Valentine, the Arizona Diamondbacks-their 1-2-3 pitchers pitch every five days, that’s it,” Boras said.

Boras continued to question the way Park has been used, not once questioning the way he has pitched when the Dodgers have needed him most.

Nothing like supporting your client by publicly questioning his manager during the most important part of the season.

Jim Tracy made a mistake by bringing Park into an unusual situation Monday.

But he doesn’t deserve that.

Tracy has been pressing a bit lately, and could use a reminder that each game is not a Game 7.

But he didn’t deserve that.

It is Tracy who tried, more than any Dodger manager before him, to turn Park into the $20-million pitcher. It is Tracy who has given Park opportunities to squelch rallies and win games.

When this season ends, despite all the injuries and early turmoil, Tracy’s biggest frustration will have been Park.

And, apparently, vice versa.

When asked Tuesday about pitching out of the bullpen, Park paused. “It wasn’t easy,” he said.

When reminded that he earlier asked Tracy for an inning to keep him sharp, Park paused again.

“I did not know that I would pitch in that situation,” he said.

So he wanted a spring-training inning in September? Can’t blame a guy for asking.

Tracy said that, with injuries and absences in the bullpen, he figured Park was his best option. Particularly, he said, since it was the start of the seventh inning, and not in a traditional late-inning relief situation.

“I felt like, with no men on base, it might be more like starting a game,” Tracy said. “And that if we could follow Kevin Brown with our next best guy, that was a good thing.”

Here’s guessing that a year from now, with the composure and understanding of a second-year manager, Tracy will not make that move again.

But here’s also guessing-some fans might even say hoping--that Chan Ho Park won’t be around to give him the chance.

*

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