Ashby Hurts His Situation

Perhaps Dodger pitcher Andy Ashby missed the memo or failed to notice teammate Omar Daal’s quotes in Sunday’s newspapers.

Rich Aurilia and Jeff Kent were the only real threats in an injury-ravaged San Francisco lineup, but Ashby went right at them in the first inning of Sunday’s 3-1 loss as if Barry Bonds and Reggie Sanders--sidelined by right hamstring strains--were still in the lineup behind them.

The two Giants took advantage of two tasty Ashby offerings, as Aurilia doubled over center fielder Dave Roberts’ head and Kent smashed a two-run home run to left, and that was all the offense San Francisco would need before 41,642 in Pac Bell Park.

Giant right-hander Jason Schmidt took advantage of home plate umpire John Hirschbeck’s liberal strike zone, limiting the Dodgers to one run and four hits and striking out 10 in seven innings to end the Dodgers’ win streak at two games and drop them five games behind Arizona in the National League West. The Dodgers lead the Giants by one game in the wild-card race.

San Francisco reliever Tim Worrell retired the side in order in the eighth, and closer Robb Nen struck out the side in the ninth for his 28th save, stifling a Dodger team that seemed to snap out of its offensive funk with 16 runs and 29 hits in two previous games.

The Dodgers struck out 14 times, one shy of their season high, four times on called third strikes. Brian Jordan and Mark Grudzielanek each struck out three times, and Jordan went down looking twice.

“I don’t like to bad-mouth the umpires,” Jordan said, “but it was a tough day for the hitters.”

Asked if Hirschbeck’s strike zone was too high, too low or too wide, Jordan said, “It was all over, but mostly it was away. A lot of pitches away were called strikes. You start giving up on those pitches, and then you start swinging at a lot of bad pitches. We swung at a lot of bad pitches today.”

Some Dodgers barked at Hirschbeck, and some just stood in the box with the bat on their shoulders, shaking their heads at his calls.

“You try not to let it get in your head, you try to stay with it, and it’s tough,” Grudzielanek said. “How do you handle it? You have to adjust, and it was tough to adjust with the throwers they had out there today.”

Schmidt (6-5) had excellent command of his 95-mph fastball, and as Hirschbeck’s strike zone widened, so did Schmidt’s pitches.

Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said Ashby also benefited from Hirschbeck’s zone--Ashby blanked the Giants from the second through sixth innings--but two of Ashby’s pitches in the first caught too much of the strike zone.

“It’s safe to say,” Tracy said, “there’s one pitch Ashby would like back.”

After Daal limited the Giants to one run and two hits in six innings Saturday, the left-hander said he pitched around Aurilia and Kent, “because everyone knows you don’t want to get beat by them,” Daal said.

But Ashby grooved a 3-and-1 pitch to Aurilia, who doubled in the first, and a first-pitch cut-fastball to Kent, who hit his 18th homer of the season.

“That early in the game, I was just trying to get into a groove, to get ahead, and I didn’t make pitches,” Ashby said. “It’s too bad that cost me the game.”

Kent’s homer wiped out a 1-0 lead the Dodgers had built in the top of the first when Roberts singled to left and Shawn Green, with Roberts running, hit a line drive past the glove of first baseman J.T. Snow and into the right-field corner for an RBI double.

But the Dodgers advanced only three other runners to second base the rest of the game, and Ashby, winless in his last six starts, fell to 7-9.

The Giants added a run in the eighth when Snow doubled off reliever Paul Quantrill and Shawon Dunston hit a two-out RBI single.

“You’ve got to give credit to their pitcher,” Tracy said of Schmidt. “Very little, if anything, was over the middle of the plate. We were not over-anxious. His pitch count [104 in seven innings] was up. He pitched well, and you have to recognize that.”