Dodgers Not Looking for Help From Outside

The Dodgers insist everything is fine despite their post-All-Star game slump that has turned up the heat at Chavez Ravine.

Going 1-6 out of the break is not the textbook way to build second-half momentum, and the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants have fared better recently in the tight National League West race. Still, the Dodgers believe they are well positioned after exceeding their expectations to this point, figuring they should qualify for the playoffs as long as they stick together and play it cool.

Playing better would also help, but the last-place San Diego Padres took the opener of a two-game series, 7-0, Wednesday night before 33,778 at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers are not expected to make a major trade before the July 31 non-waiver deadline, and players are not looking for outside help.

“Everyone knows that we haven’t been playing good baseball the last week, but you’ve got to overcome a little adversity if you’re going to be a team that does anything,” right fielder Shawn Green said. “We’ve got a good enough team in this clubhouse to get the job done, and we’ve shown that over the first half of the season. It’s just going to be a matter of the guys who had good first halves to keep it up, and the guys who played under their expectations to get back to form.

“It’s understandable that fans would look at [the last seven games] and think that we need to make a move. You could understand if they figured we needed to add something to help right now. When you look at a team like the [New York] Yankees, that has an unlimited supply of money and minor league players to do things, it’s a natural response for fans to expect that. But that’s not the situation in most of baseball, and that’s not our situation.”

The Dodgers have lacked the prospects to acquire premier players in trades for many seasons, and baseball officials said little has changed. Even if the farm system was teeming with talent in double- and triple-A, teams are not interested in the players General Manager Dan Evans wants to trade to bolster the 25-man roster and trim a bloated payroll.

Evans inquired about New York Met third baseman Edgardo Alfonzo, who can become a free agent at the end of the season. But third baseman Adrian Beltre would have to be included in a deal for Alfonzo, as well as other impact players, and the Dodgers are not willing to give up on Beltre, 23, despite his subpar season.

Besides, Evans doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about.

“This is the same team that, a week ago, everybody was extolling as one of the great surprises in the National League,” he said. “We’re not looking at this seven-game string and discounting what happened the previous 85 or 90 games.

“A lot of the people who are complaining now are a lot of people who were complaining when we were 0-3. They’re overreacting to a minor part of the schedule.”

Said first baseman Eric Karros: “We’ve put ourselves in a situation where things become magnified.”

For his part, Manager Jim Tracy continues to accentuate the positive.

“This club is going to bounce back, that’s what I’m very confident in, and what that correlates to remains to be seen,” he said. “There are three clubs that are in heated competition in the framework of our division, but our club will bounce back. It’s a [seven]-game stretch where we’ve won a ballgame, and every club goes through that.

“It’s that imaginary wall that you don’t see, and for whatever reason, you run into it. We’re not the only ones it’s going to happen to. We’ve hit a stumbling block here, obviously, and we lead the wild card and we’re only [1 1/2 games] out in the division.”

But players take a different view, saying they expect skepticism from fans after the chaos of the last few seasons.

“We’ve put [fans] on a roller-coaster ride the last few seasons, so everybody is going to end up panicking,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “But really, the only thing that concerns most of the guys is that we’re going to try too hard. If we try to do too much, then we’re not going to win.”