Nomo Goes Long Way, Beats Giants

Brian Jordan peeked at the auxiliary scoreboard above left field after the fifth inning Wednesday, saw that Dodger starter Hideo Nomo had already thrown 110 pitches and thought, “Whoo-whee.” Catcher Paul Lo Duca went to the mound in the fifth to see if his pitcher was feeling all right.

Not to worry. The right-hander once threw a 191-pitch complete game--with 16 walks--in Japan for the Kintetsu Buffaloes, defeating the Seibu Lions in 1994, so why all the fuss? Nomo was just getting warmed up.

Nomo had plenty left in his tank, and because of that the Dodgers, a car length behind San Francisco before the game, pulled even with the Giants atop the National League wild-card race with a 7-3 victory before 41,310 in Pacific Bell Park.

Rising to the challenge of a virtual must-win situation, Nomo allowed two runs and six hits in 6 2/3 innings, a gutsy 132-pitch effort in which he struck out eight, walked five and threw more pitches than he had in any game over the last four seasons.

Marquis Grissom had three hits, a rally-sparking single in the first, a triple in the sixth and an RBI double in the eighth, and Jordan broke open a one-run game with a three-run home run in the fifth, as the Dodgers ended their four-game losing streak and the Giants’ five-game win streak, and salvaged the finale of a three-game series.

“You don’t want to come here and get swept, go down two games [in the wild-card standings] and be in a position where you have to sweep [a four-game series from the Giants] next week,” Lo Duca said. “If we had lost, it wouldn’t have been the end of the season, but this was as close to a must-win game as you can get. It’s a big swing between being two games down and even.”

With that kind of pressure, it’s no wonder Manager Jim Tracy said, “There’s nobody I’d rather have on the mound today than Hideo Nomo.”

Nomo struggled early, needing 73 pitches to get through three innings, and he allowed single runs in the second and third innings, but he never crumbled. Nomo found a groove in the fourth, allowing no more hits until being pulled in favor of Paul Shuey with two out in the seventh.

Nomo (14-6) is 12-1 with a 3.08 earned-run average in his last 23 starts dating to May 17, and 19 of those games resulted in Dodger victories. He has a 10-3 record and a 2.52 ERA against the Giants and is 8-0 with a 1.78 ERA in San Francisco.

“You hear the words ‘warrior’ and ‘battler’ with him, and they’re all the right words, because he just will not give in to you,” Tracy said. “ ... He’s had a number of tremendous performances for us this season, and that one ranks right near the top. I don’t know where our club would be without him.

“He’s probably mad at me for not letting him throw 175 pitches, but that’s just who he is and what he’s all about. And don’t think the rest of the guys in that clubhouse don’t recognize that.”

Nomo chose to recognize his teammates after the game, responding to several questions about his pitching by saying he was able to relax after Jordan’s home run.

The tension of a 2-2 game, in which the Dodgers squandered several early scoring opportunities, evaporated in the top of the fifth, which Grissom opened with a triple to right-center.

Lo Duca doubled to left to make it 3-2, Shawn Green reached on a bloop single to center, and Jordan, replacing the struggling Adrian Beltre in the cleanup spot, blasted a 2-and-0 Kirk Rueter pitch deep into the left-field seats for a 6-2 lead.

Grissom also sparked a first-inning rally by smacking Rueter’s first pitch of the game into center for a single.

Lo Duca singled and Green walked to load the bases.

Jordan rolled a grounder to third, but third base umpire Ed Montague ruled that Giant third baseman David Bell failed to nick the bag with his foot on his attempt for a double play. Grissom scored on the error, Jordan beat the throw to first, and Eric Karros’ RBI fielder’s choice made it 2-0.

David Bell’s RBI single pulled the Giants within 2-1 in the second, but Nomo got Rich Aurilia to pop out with the bases loaded to end the inning. San Francisco tied it in the third on Tom Goodwin’s RBI single, but Nomo escaped a first-and-third, one-out jam by striking out J.T. Snow and a bases-loaded, two-out jam by striking out Rueter.

“He didn’t have his great stuff, but he just battled and battled,” Lo Duca said of Nomo. “They had opportunities for big innings, but he turned them into nothing.”