Dodger Offense Breaks Out

A league-leading pitching staff burdened by poor run support is keeping the Dodgers in contention for the National League West championship.

On Sunday, the offense finally did its part and produced its most prolific performance of the season.

The Dodgers hit three home runs and pounded a season-high 15 hits in a 10-1 victory over the Montreal Expos before 31,816 at Dodger Stadium.

Eric Karros hit his fourth homer, Chad Kreuter hit his first and pitcher Andy Ashby hit the first of his career as the Dodgers scored in each of the first six innings.

Paul Lo Duca went four for four, Karros three for three and struggling Shawn Green returned to the lineup and avoided going hitless in the seven-game home stand when he laced a ground-rule double in the eighth inning against former Dodger Matt Herges.

The victory gave the Dodgers three wins in four games against the Expos, helped them salvage a 4-3 home stand and improved their record to 25-19.

“We’ve been putting our staff in a situation where they’ve got to be almost perfect,” said Karros, whose home run capped a three-run first inning. “This series, we swung the bats a little better and, hopefully, it will carry over to the next series.”

The Dodgers are off today and will begin a six-game trip Tuesday at Milwaukee. The trip concludes with a three-game series at Phoenix against the defending World Series champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

Dodger Manager Jim Tracy, who watched the New York Mets shut out his team last Tuesday and Wednesday, does not expect many repeats of Sunday’s offensive onslaught.

“We don’t need seven and eight, nine runs a day, but the way the offense performed today, I know we’re going to score four or five,” Tracy said. “That’s a lot of runs for this pitching staff the way they are throwing.”

Andy Ashby (3-4) turned in his second consecutive strong performance and characterized it as his best since returning from off-season elbow surgery.

Last Tuesday, Ashby gave up one earned run and six hits in six innings against the Mets, but the Dodgers lost, 3-0. Against the Expos, he gave up one run and four hits in seven innings and lowered his earned-run average to 3.21 in a game that took only 2 hours 20 minutes to complete.

Ashby struck out seven and did not walk a batter while throwing only 78 pitches, 58 for strikes. He retired 11 Expos on ground balls. Brian Schneider had a double in the second inning, Jose Vidro extended his hitting streak to 15 games with a single in the third and Brad Wilkerson and pinch-hitter Troy O’Leary had singles in the fifth.

“He got a lot of first-pitch strikes, worked ahead in the count and all of his pitches were down,” Expo first baseman Lee Stevens said of Ashby.

The Dodgers gave Ashby a cushion by scoring three runs in the first, two in the second and third and one each in the fourth, fifth, and sixth.

Expo starter Bruce Chen (2-3), could not get out of the second inning. Karros homered to left in the first inning. Kreuter, facing Chen for the first time, chased him with a two-run homer in the second.

“[Chen] had nothing--no location, no velocity,” Expo Manager Frank Robinson said.

Lo Duca raised his average from .295 to .314 with a run-scoring single in the first inning, an RBI double in the third, an infield single in the fifth and a run-scoring single in the sixth. He also scored three runs.

Along with his two-run homer in the first, Karros had a run-scoring single in the third and a single in the fifth to raise his average from .298 to .313. Green had been benched for Saturday’s game against the Expos as Tracy tried to ease the pressure on his slumping No. 3 hitter. Green struck out twice and grounded out before hitting his eighth-inning double.

“I thought he had a few good at-bats as far as his approach, and for me the icing on the cake was the double because that ball jumped off his bat the way we’re accustomed to seeing it happen when Shawn Green is hitting it,” Tracy said.