Tracy Has a Big Hole to Fill in Lineup

As is custom, Jim Tracy met with the media before managing a baseball game. But this time, the Dodger manager was distracted Wednesday by having to plug a 48-homer gap in his lineup.

Even as he spoke, Tracy was simultaneously juggling potential lineups in his head with Shawn Green sitting out Wednesday night’s game with the San Francisco Giants in observance in Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar.

Initially, Tracy had Gary Sheffield batting third in the lineup but moved him back to fourth and put Adrian Beltre in the No. 3 spot.

The move paid off in the first inning as Beltre singled in Tom Goodwin, in the lineup playing center field and batting leadoff with Green out, for the game’s first run.

“Yeah, it is,” Tracy said when asked if it was hard to make up a lineup with Green gone.

“Because I’m still sitting here thinking that ... I may adjust it again,” Tracy said. “I mean, you’re talking about taking 48 home runs out of your lineup and close to 120 RBIs, so yeah, it’s very difficult to make a lineup up that way, yes.”

On the night of the Dodgers’ final regular season home game, Tracy also reflected on the support shown him and the Dodgers in his rookie season managing the club, a campaign that has seen the Dodgers endure a rash of injuries yet remain in contention.

“I can honestly tell you that these fans and the people in this community and the people that have supported this club over the years, three million of them again this year, they have been great to me,” Tracy said, referring to the Dodgers going over the three-million mark in attendance for the sixth consecutive season and 16th time since 1978.

“They have been great to the players that we’ve put out there every day and we’ve tried very, very hard not to let them down,” Tracy said. “We’ve given them effort day in and day out. We’ve come back from being down and there were a lot of times when a lot of people felt like, you know, it’s going to be over with and you start to hear talk of that as early as late May. We never allowed it to happen.”

Tracy also explained why he has pitched around Barry Bonds, who is closing in on Mark McGwire’s home run record.

“I was a coach in Montreal back in 1998 watching the Mark McGwire situation unfold,” Tracy said. “At that point in time, you’re talking about two clubs [the Expos and St. Louis Cardinals] that were out of the race ... and it was not going to impact, at all, the pennant race in any way shape or form. That’s not the case here.”

The Dodgers are battling for a playoff berth with Bonds’ San Francisco Giants and the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“This is a completely different situation,” Tracy said. “You’ve got

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Andy Ashby, whose season ended with surgery on his right (throwing) elbow on June 15, has started a throwing program and Wednesday played catch for the third time in five days.

Ashby, 34, threw 40 times Saturday, 50 times Monday and had 55 tosses from a distance of 40 feet Wednesday.

“I couldn’t ask for it to feel any better at this stage,” Ashby said. “It’s reaching and it’s short but I’m throwing, so thank God for that.”

Ashby was 2-0 with a 3.86 earned-run average in two April starts.

“I don’t want to rush it and have a chance to not be ready for next year,” he said. “The main thing now is continuing to progress and, come spring training, be ready to go.”