Tracy Plays It Safe With Perez as Dodgers Shut Out Phillies

A popularity contest against 24,940 Dodger Stadium fans, Jim Tracy did not win Wednesday night. But the bout that really mattered, the game against the Philadelphia Phillies, the Dodger manager wasn’t taking any chances with that one.

With Odalis Perez one out away from the third shutout of his career but having thrown 132 pitches, Tracy slowly walked to the mound with runners on first and second and two out in the ninth inning, the hometown boos growing louder with each step.

Three Eric Gagne pitches later, the last of which pinch-hitter Ricky Ledee popped up to first, and Tracy knew he had made the right call. The Dodgers beat the Phillies, 4-0, to end a choppy April with a 14-14 record, Perez got his first win of the season, striking out a career-high 11 in 8 2/3 innings, and Adrian Beltre and Fred McGriff homered to power the offense.

“I understand the reception completely, but I have a player and an organization to protect,” Tracy said. “I gave him every opportunity to finish the game, but if I let him throw 140 pitches and then find out he’s not available in June, July or August, you’d feel a little different. It’s the first month of the season, and he was extended out there pretty good.”

Perez looked visibly upset as Tracy reached the mound, covering his face with his glove, but whatever frustration the left-hander harbored seemed to melt away with the postgame ice that chilled his shoulder.

“I wanted to finish, but I threw 132 pitches -- it was the right decision,” said Perez, who gave up seven hits, all singles, and walked one. “It’s early in the season, and that’s a lot of pitches. We won the game. That’s the most important thing. He gave me an opportunity to finish the game, but I couldn’t handle a ground ball to me.”

Perez was as upset with his inability to snag Tomas Perez’s come-backer, which rolled into center field in the ninth, as he was about coming out of the game.

The Dodger starter had 114 pitches through eight innings, and Mike Lieberthal opened the ninth with a single, but strikeouts of Jim Thome and Pat Burrell moved Perez to the brink of a shutout. Then came Tomas Perez’s hit, here came Tracy, and there went Odalis Perez.

“He was upset,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said, “but Trace did the right thing. Any time you have a Gagne, you want to go to him in that situation. I don’t know if Odalis realized how many pitches he had thrown. He’s such a competitor, he wanted the complete game.”

Perez breezed through the first seven innings, giving up only three hits, and didn’t face any real trouble until the eighth, when Marlon Byrd and pinch-hitter Jason Michaels opened with singles.

But Perez struck out leadoff batter Jimmy Rollins looking at a borderline fastball near the knees, struck out David Bell on a check-swing slider and got Bobby Abreu to tap weakly to first.

The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the second when McGriff pulverized an 0-and-1 Vincente Padilla pitch, hitting a towering home run to right-center field, his third of the season and 481st of his career.

Beltre, who made a superb backhand stab of Lieberthal’s second-inning shot behind the third-base bag and threw to first for the out, put the game out of reach with a three-run homer in the sixth.

After going five for 11 with three runs batted in during a weekend sweep of Pittsburgh, Beltre seemed to regress Monday night, swinging at sweeping sliders well off the plate during his 0-for-4 performance.

Beltre rebounded Tuesday, hitting a home run and a single, walking twice and scoring three runs in a 6-2 Dodger victory. But in his first two at-bats Wednesday, Beltre looked overmatched, striking out both times against Padilla.

Then in the sixth, Beltre, with two on, worked the count in his favor, 3 and 1. He hammered Padilla’s next pitch over the wall in left-center for his fourth home run.

“When we get a little extra offense from him, it’s the answer to our situation,” Tracy said.