Things Are Looking Up

Probing the dark depths of Shawn Green’s slump, one eventually clanks into a barnacled relic.

Oh, goodness. It’s Eric Karros.

There is no more compelling measure of Green’s despair than the hard fact that, in the middle of June, he and Karros have precisely the same number of home runs, seven.

Karros, of course, being the reserve for the Chicago Cubs with 145 fewer at-bats, the longtime Dodger who was traded away last winter to make room for someone who could increase their power.

Yeah, well, um....

Speaking of trades, everyone was chatting about them Tuesday at Dodger Stadium, even with the hated Giants in town, when everyone would rather be talking about the size of Barry Bonds’ arms or the carbon dating of Benito Santiago’s birth certificate.

Everyone agrees the Dodgers need to trade for a power hitter. Everyone feels the Dodgers have a contending team that an outside bat could transform into an October team.

Everyone is right, and everyone is wrong.

They need to make a trade, but the best one would occur within the walls of their clubhouse.

Shawn Green needs to trade his reluctance for resilience, his discomfort for daring, his slump for a streak.

The bat the Dodgers need is sitting right inside Green’s locker, an $84-million piece of wood, no cork, other than whatever is bottling up its owner’s swing.

This trade wouldn’t cost them a valuable member of the bullpen. This bat wouldn’t rob their farm system of top prospects.

This deal would also be the hardest one to complete.

“I wish I knew what it was,” Green said before the Dodgers’ 4-1 victory over the Giants. “Last year, everything like, clicked. This year, it hasn’t clicked.”

Last year at this time, Green had 20 homers and 52 runs batted in. This year, he has seven homers and 23 RBIs.

Last year, he hit four homers in one game. Currently, he has hit four homers in his last 45 games.

Last year, he disappeared during most of the final-month pennant race. He has not shown up since. The Dodgers claim they aren’t worried, but maybe they should be.

Green is a nice clubhouse presence and community guy who doesn’t enjoy the spotlight. But with the team facing the loss of a key player to compensate for his struggles, he can’t avoid it.

Green is a smart hitter who has always benefited from the power of those batting around him. But in a lineup in which essentially only Paul Lo Duca is consistently hitting, he doesn’t have that luxury.

Scouts say opposing pitchers feel as if they no longer have to throw him strikes. Batting coach Jack Clark said he just doesn’t look comfortable.

It’s time for the team’s highest-paid hitter to deal with it.

For all of Green’s good works in town -- and dozens of charities can tell you stories -- his history as a Dodger will be written in the batter’s box, in the heat of summers such as these, burning their way to the truth.

“Shawn has done so many things that are phenomenal, it’s hard for him to feel anything other than greatness,” Clark said. “Last year he captured the feeling, captured the whole country, and now he’s waiting for it to happen again.”

But it can’t happen like it happened last summer. Four homers in one game? A major-league record 19 total bases in that same game? Nine homers in one week?

Could it be that what happened during the amazing Milwaukee afternoon last May, and continuing on an ensuing visit to Arizona, actually hurt Green’s approach?

Could it be that one of baseball’s steadiest hitters has forsaken that steadiness in an effort to rediscover that magic?

“Last year, I was sort of struggling along, then whatever happened that day in Milwaukee, it all clicked, and kept clicking for the rest of the year,” Green acknowledged. “That was nice. It sort of caught me up.”

It didn’t help that this season, on the May 23 anniversary of his great day in Milwaukee, the Dodgers were back in the same place playing the same team.

Amid great fanfare, he hit his sixth homer and drove in four runs

He has hit one homer in 21 games since. He’s still listening for that click.

“I know I have a big load to carry,” he said. “I know the fans are frustrated. But nobody is more frustrated than I am.”

In his locker, Clark has a videotape of those games in Milwaukee and Arizona. He says he has watched it until his eyes ached.

“I can’t find any difference in anything but his confidence,” Clark said.

But in hitters, confidence is the hardest thing to figure. And in Green, emotions are the hardest thing to read.

“I know he’s feeling a lot of pressure, but he’s holding a lot of it in,” Clark said. “Part of this game is being able to get it out. But that’s not his personality.”

So Green struggles, stews, worries, wilts.

And, as the July 31 dealing deadline slowly approaches, he hopes.

“We don’t need to make a trade,” he said. “We don’t.”

It’s his call.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.