Dodgers Are on Cloud 19

It began as an early September showdown between National League West contenders and ended with Arizona first baseman Mark Grace on the mound in the ninth inning, cracking up as he did his best Mike Fetters impersonation, pitching to a lineup that looked more like the Las Vegas 51s than the Dodgers.

That’s how much of a laugher Monday night’s game was for the Dodgers, who handed the defending World Series-champion Diamondbacks their worst loss in franchise history, a 19-1 obliteration that pulled the Dodgers within five games of Arizona in the division and pushed them 2 1/2 games ahead of San Francisco in the wild-card race.

The Dodgers, the same offense-impaired team that scored 19 runs--total--during a nine-game stretch July 14-22, amassed a season-high 24 hits, matching their highest total since moving to Los Angeles in 1958, while winning for the 18th time in 24 games.

It was such a blowout the Dodgers batted around twice--when they scored five runs in the second inning, which featured home runs by Shawn Green and Brian Jordan, and eight runs in the seventh, which featured home runs by Adrian Beltre and Mike Kinkade.

“That’s about three weeks’ worth of runs for us,” Manager Jim Tracy said. “We scored early ... and just kept hitting.”

The game was so lopsided that by the seventh inning the Dodgers fielded a lineup that included Kinkade, David Ross, Joe Thurston, Jolbert Cabrera and Wilkin Ruan, whose first two major league hits, a single and a double, both came in the seventh.

And it was so ugly that Grace, a 38-year-old left-hander, made his major league pitching debut in the ninth, bringing a Bank One Ballpark crowd of 35,372 to its feet and players from both teams to the top steps of their dugouts.

Grace retired Jeff Reboulet and Ruan on fly-ball outs before Ross drilled his first major league homer, a 396-foot shot to left. Grace then got Tyler Houston, a former Chicago Cub teammate, to fly to right.

“I have a new-found respect for pitchers,” Grace said. “My butt aches, my legs ache, my arm hurts. But if you can have five minutes of fun in a game like this, it’s worth it.”

Position players have made a mockery of games by pitching--remember Jose Canseco blowing out his arm for Texas in 1993?--and Arizona Manager Bob Brenly said he would apologize to Tracy later Monday night.

Not necessary. The Dodgers loved it.

“He had good stuff,” Tracy said. “He threw strikes. He’s one of the class people in this game, and he has been for a long time. Obviously, he was having a little fun, and we respect that. But I think he wants that pitch to Ross back.”

Grace complained he didn’t have a scouting report on Ross.

“He can obviously hit a 65-mph fastball,” Grace said. “That poor kid hit his first home run, and it’s off Mark Grace. I feel sorry for him.”

There was one benefit for Ross.

“I’m going to tell everyone, my kids and my grandkids, that I hit my first home run off a future Hall of Famer,” Ross said. “I just won’t tell them who it was.”

At least Grace ended on a good note by retiring his old friend Houston. “I’ve known him for a long time,” Grace said, “and I have bragging rights on him forever.”

Houston was impressed with Grace.

“He had a tight little slider, a good fastball, and he hit his spots well,” Houston said. “I would have loved to have hit a home run off him. I’m going to hear about this for a long time.”

Beltre came within a double of hitting for the cycle, adding an RBI triple in the fourth and a single in the sixth, and Mark Grudzielanek had three hits. Houston and Ruan had two-run doubles in the seventh, when the Dodgers established a season high for runs in an inning.

Arizona’s 18-run margin of defeat topped the previous record of 17, set in a 19-2 loss at Colorado on June 18, 2000.

While Dodger hitters gorged themselves on starter Rick Helling (seven runs, nine hits in 3 2/3 innings) and reliever Eddie Oropesa (10 runs, nine hits in 1 2/3 innings), Odalis Perez (13-8) blanked the Diamondbacks on two hits in six innings, extending his scoreless-innings streak against Arizona to 14. Perez is 3-1 with a 1.80 earned-run average in his last seven starts.

“Perez has been magnificent for us in his last six or seven starts,” Tracy said.

The Diamondbacks, meanwhile, have lost six of nine games, scoring one or zero runs in five of the games.

But at least Grace provided some comic relief.