36 Years, Same Old Dodgers

To set the mood for their first regular-season series against the Dodgers, the Baltimore Orioles played a lengthy retrospective film of their 1966 World Series victory over Los Angeles on the Camden Yards video board about an hour before the teams met in an interleague game Friday night.

Then life imitated art, with a rookie right-hander from Mexico named Rodrigo Lopez playing the part of Jim Palmer, the Dodger offense playing the part of, well, the 1966 Dodgers for most of the evening, and a crowd of 33,624 getting transported 36 years back in time.

Lopez, who just a few months ago was pitching for the Culiacan Tomato Growers of the Mexican Winter League, gave up two runs and six hits in 8 2/3 innings and retired 12 straight batters from the third to seventh innings to lead the Orioles to a 4-2 victory over the Dodgers.

Baltimore left fielder Melvin Mora hit two solo home runs off starter Andy Ashby, in the third and sixth innings, and Brian Roberts homered in the eighth to pace an Oriole offense that featured eight hits--seven for extra bases.

The Dodgers avoided a shutout when Paul Lo Duca, Shawn Green and Eric Karros singled off Lopez in the ninth, Lo Duca scoring with two out when center fielder Chris Singleton bobbled Karros’ hit.

Baltimore Manager Mike Hargrove pulled Lopez for closer Jorge Julio, a decision that was met with derision from the home crowd. Julio gave up an RBI single to Dave Hansen to make it 4-2, and the runners advanced to second and third on Geronimo Gil’s passed ball. But Julio struck out Adrian Beltre to end the game for his 11th save, enabling Lopez to improve to 6-1.

“I know it wasn’t a popular decision when I went out there--I probably would have been run out of town on a rail if it didn’t work--but it was the right thing to do,” Hargrove said.

“I wasn’t going to let him face the tying or the winning run. My heart was telling me to let him finish the game, but my head was telling me the smart thing to do was to win the game and let Julio come in to face Hansen.”

The ninth-inning runs ended the Dodgers’ string of consecutive innings without a run against the Orioles at 41, a streak that dated to Game 1 of the 1966 World Series, when the Dodgers scored single runs in the second and third innings--their only runs of the series--in a 5-2 loss.

The Orioles went on to sweep the series with Palmer blanking Sandy Koufax and the Dodgers, 6-0, in Game 2; Wally Bunker blanking Claude Osteen, 1-0, in Game 3, and Dave McNally blanking Don Drysdale, 1-0, in Game 4. That ’66 Dodger team won the National League pennant with a 95-67 record despite being shut out 17 times.

The Dodgers and Orioles met for the first time since that series Friday night, and for most of the night, it seemed, not much had changed. Lopez, a 26-year-old who appeared in only six major league games before this season, blanked the Dodgers on three hits through eight innings before tiring in the ninth.

Lopez mixed his well-placed fastballs with a solid slider and changeup, and his control was superb--of his 107 pitches, 73 were strikes.

With the Dodgers swinging at so many first pitches or early in the count, the game lasted only 2 hours 18 minutes.

“He came out throwing strikes, and before you know it, we’re in the sixth inning and we have only two hits,” Dodger leadoff batter Dave Roberts said. “He got into a rhythm, and we didn’t do anything to get him out of it.

“He threw a lot of first-pitch strikes and got into a comfort zone, so we should have gotten him into some deeper counts.”

Through seven innings, Lopez faced only 23 batters, two over the minimum, and the two hits he allowed were a bloop single to Karros in the second and an infield single to Roberts in the third.

A double play finished the Dodger second, and Roberts was picked off first to end the third.

“He mixed his pitches well and had just enough of a changeup to keep us off balance,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “He used his fastball on both sides of the plate, threw a lot of strikes and kept the ball out of the middle.... I can understand our guys wanting to be aggressive early in the count, because even when he missed, he was around the plate.”