Dodgers Enjoy Good Laugher

Saturday’s game between the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies came with a three-hour laugh track, but the fun didn’t end with the Dodgers’ 16-3 demolition of the Rockies before 28,118 in Coors Field.

The Dodgers had a blast during the game, pounding out 20 hits, including three by slumping Adrian Beltre, who had a homer and three runs batted in, three by Paul Lo Duca, two by Brian Jordan, who had a homer and four RBIs, and two by Eric Karros, who had three RBIs.

They remained one game behind the San Francisco Giants in the wild-card race with 14 games to go.

And players from both teams were cracking up about Colorado third baseman Todd Zeile’s major league pitching debut, in which he threw a scoreless ninth, getting Chad Kreuter to hit into a double play, striking out Wilkin Ruan to end the inning and twirling his cap to the appreciative crowd as he walked to the dugout.

But the real party didn’t begin until after the game, when seven Dodger players, as part of a rookie hazing ritual, had to don Hooters waitress outfits, with skimpy, skin-tight bright orange shorts, midriff-showing white tank tops, wigs, lipstick and rouge, and walk seven or eight blocks back to their hotel with their teammates in tow.

With one stop, of course: a Hooters restaurant down the street from Coors Field.

“We’re walking as a team, the team chemistry is perfect right now,” said Jordan, who hit a two-run homer in the second inning, a two-run double in the third and has 16 RBIs in September. “Right now, we’re all smiles.”

The game also put some cheer back into the Dodgers. They had lost six of seven, their offense was slumping, and they were in danger of slipping out of the wild-card race, but Saturday’s romp--the Dodgers scored 12 runs in the first three innings--could have far-reaching ramifications.

Dodger Manager Jim Tracy was able to pull starter Odalis Perez after five innings and only 60 pitches, preserving the left-hander for Thursday’s all-important start against the Giants in the finale of a four-game series. Perez gave up two runs and six hits, including Todd Helton’s fourth-inning homer, to improve to 14-9.

The Dodgers scored more runs Saturday than they had in their six previous losses combined, and the heart of their order--Shawn Green, Jordan and Karros--provided nine RBIs in 11 plate appearances. “If we all get hot at the same time, we can score a lot of runs,” Jordan said.

Perhaps most important, Beltre ended a 10-game slump in which he went 1 for 34 (.029) with no runs batted in, one run, two walks and nine strikeouts. The third baseman had an RBI single in the first, singled in the second and hit a two-run homer, his 20th of the season, in the third.

“The at-bats by Adrian Beltre were very special, and I say that simply because we need Adrian Beltre,” Tracy said of the unpredictable 24-year-old. “We need him to do what he did for us in July and much of August. If we’re going to be playing baseball in October, we need him, because we’re a better club when he’s doing what he did today.”

The Dodgers became a better club once Colorado starter Victor Santos took the mound. The right-hander had an 8.27 earned-run average before the game, giving up 75 earned runs and 147 hits in 118 innings, and he left with a 10.50 ERA after giving up six runs on nine hits in 1 2/3 innings.

The Dodgers also rocked reliever Randy Flores for six runs in 1 1/3 innings and were so far ahead that Tracy pulled his starters by the seventh and tied a major league record by using six pinch-hitters in the sixth inning.

The game was so lopsided Colorado Manager Clint Hurdle let Zeile pitch the ninth, much to the delight of fans and players from both teams. After warming up with his 8-year-old son, Garrett, in the batting cage, Zeile took his 75-mph fastball and 50-mph knuckleball to the mound and didn’t disappoint.

“In retrospect, I should have gone to Zeile a lot earlier,” Hurdle said. “I felt for all the people who waited around today. To put up with our ineptitude and mediocrity, they deserved a treat.”

Zeile gave up a leadoff single to Cesar Izturis but got Kreuter to ground into a 6-4-3 double play and struck out Ruan with a fastball.

“It was fun, because it was like taking batting practice,” Izturis said. “Everybody was laughing, even the guy behind the plate.”

For the Dodgers, the entire day was a hoot.