It’s Not Easy, but Ishii Wins

Dodger pitcher Kazuhisa Ishii jogged his memory, going back through his 10 years in Japan, to determine whether the 52 pitches he threw during Pittsburgh’s six-run, six-hit, three-walk second inning Tuesday night were the most he has ever thrown in one inning.

“It was a lot; it was up there,” Ishii said through an interpreter. “It’s definitely in my top 10.”

To which General Manager Dan Evans said: “Hopefully it wasn’t in the bottom of that top 10.”

And Manager Jim Tracy: “I don’t want to see the other nine.”

It was ugly, it equaled the most runs the Dodgers have given up in an inning all season, but it couldn’t have been timed better. That’s because it came on a chilly evening when Dodger bats produced season highs for runs and hits in a 9-6 victory over the Pirates before 13,235 in PNC Park.

With temperatures dipping to 45 degrees by the seventh inning, six Dodger starters--Cesar Izturis, Marquis Grissom, Brian Jordan, Eric Karros, Adrian Beltre and Mark Grudzielanek--had two hits apiece to lead a 14-hit attack, which featured five runs and six hits in the decisive fifth inning.

A Dodger team that ranked 13th in the National League in runs and began the game batting .228 with runners in scoring position, went six for 15 with runners in scoring position Tuesday night. Seven runs came on two-out hits, including Izturis’ clutch two-out, two-run double that turned a 6-5 deficit into a 7-6 lead in the fifth.

Relievers Giovanni Carrara, Paul Quantrill and Eric Gagne combined for four scoreless innings--with Gagne recording his eighth save--to help Ishii improve to 4-0 and become the first Dodger rookie starter to begin his career 4-0 since Fernando Valenzuela went 8-0 in 1981.

“It’s amazing how he got that win,” Jordan marveled at Ishii. “He’s either pretty good or pretty lucky, one or the other.”

Or pretty resilient. Reliever Guillermo Mota was loose in the second inning, and Tracy said he was one walk away from pulling Ishii. The left-hander was so wild catcher Paul Lo Duca had to leap to catch several high-and-away fastballs, but Tracy stuck with his starter.

The inning was so long that Grissom, the Dodger center fielder, found himself “thinking about my kids, wondering if they had a good day at school,” and Ishii threw so many pitches he came within three of matching the number of pitches fellow starter Odalis Perez threw on April 10 against San Francisco ... in six innings.

After two singles, a walk, RBI singles by Jack Wilson and pitcher Jimmy Anderson, a two-run double by Abraham Nunez and a two-run single by Brian Giles, Ishii was on the brink of disaster when he walked two more batters to load the bases with two out.

But Ishii struck out Mike Benjamin, the 12th batter of the inning, on a full-count pitch and, after pitching coach Jim Colborn and pitcher Hideo Nomo advised him to slow down his delivery, Ishii blanked the Pirates on one hit over the next three innings before giving way to Carrara to start the sixth.

“He didn’t have his best stuff, and he could have easily shut it down,” Lo Duca said. “But he battled, he got out of the second inning and he got the win. So for me, that was his best outing of the year.”

It was the Dodgers’ best offensive game of the season, too.

Trailing, 6-3, Lo Duca and Jordan both singled off Anderson to start the fifth. Karros’ RBI single scored Lo Duca, and Adrian Beltre, whose two-out, two-run double highlighted a three-run first inning, popped to second for the first out.

Grudzielanek’s RBI single to right pulled the Dodgers to within 6-5, and Karros took third on right fielder Craig Wilson’s fielding error. Instead of going to his bench for a pinch-hitter, Tracy allowed Ishii to bunt Grudzielanek to second, as Karros held at third. Izturis then poked a two-run double to left to put the Dodgers in front.

Grissom lined an RBI single to center for an 8-6 lead before Shawn Green popped to short to end the inning, but the Dodgers added another run in the sixth on Grudzielanek’s two-out RBI single to center.