L.A. Team That Gets the Concept

The Dodgers’ best pure hitter stepped to home plate in the eighth inning Thursday, tying run on first base, none out ...

And tried to bunt?

Glenn Hoffman stared. Jim Tracy froze. Milton Bradley smiled.

“Bunting on my own, just trying to do whatever it takes,” Bradley said.

Of course he was. It’s who these Dodgers are becoming. It has been like this for nearly a month. The old-timers on the reserved level recognize it. It’s called unselfishness.

After the first pitch sailed wide Thursday, Tracy quickly flashed a sign to Hoffman to remind Bradley to stop being such a nice guy and swing the bat, dang it!

The next pitch, well, that was some bunt. Bradley turned an inside fastball into a 412-foot Roman candle that landed in the right-field loge seats, a two-run homer that gave the Dodgers the lead in a 4-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

Said Colorado pitcher Tim Harikkala: “That’s not a place I’m going to throw to him if I know he’s swinging.”

Said Bradley, still smiling: “You fake a bunt, it happens that way sometimes.”

It has happened that way lots of times around here lately, 18 times in 22 games, the hottest team in baseball actually playing like something we haven’t seen much around here in a couple of decades.

A team playing like, you know, a team.

On a sun-drenched, empty-seat-dominated weekday afternoon in front of possibly the smallest 34,276-person crowd in Dodger Stadium history, the home nine rattled around the place like ghosts of a different era.

In the first seven innings, they hit two inning-killing, double-play grounders. They collected one hit in nine chances with runners in scoring position. They botched a fly ball in left field.

Then Bradley stepped up, faked a bunt even though he has no sacrifices this season, popped his career-high 11th homer, and now they are 16 games above .500 and somewhat beyond reason.

“You lose sometimes and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth,” Bradley said. “This tastes like steak.”

The impulse is to also say that it tastes like 1988, but we’re not going there, no way.

Every time they have gotten hot over the last several years, we have compared them to 1988, and ended up looking as silly as Orel Hershiser in a Texas uniform or Kirk Gibson in a suit.

We’ll wait until October to bring up 1988.

For now, suffice to say, this team has adopted a throwback willingness to do the things that never show up in the box score, but always in the standings.

“The little things,” said Hoffman, the third base coach. “This team has the commitment to winning that you see in the little things.”

Check out their first run, in the fifth inning, in a scoreless tie.

Cesar Izturis, maybe the league’s most improved player not named Adrian Beltre, took two balls before leading off with a single.

For what seemed like the next 10 minutes, he endured five pickoff throws and two stolen bases that didn’t count because Beltre fouled off each pitch.

Distracted? Frustrated? Neither. The moment Aaron Cook’s pitch barely nicked off catcher Todd Greene’s glove, Izturis was gone again, racing to second ahead of a bad throw and winding up on third base.

From there he scored on Beltre’s single.

“You can’t get mad out there; you have to stay in the game,” Izturis said. “The minute that ball hits the dirt, I know I’m gone. It’s how we have to play.”

Barely a week from the trading deadline, now it’s Dodger owner Frank McCourt’s turn.

His team is willing to share, now will he?

For all the good feelings born of comeback wins, there remains a sobering truth.

In 68 of the Dodgers’ 94 games this year, they have trailed.

Has anybody ever won a championship after trailing for 72% of the summer?

Given these numbers, their record is not simply magical, it is unthinkable, and cannot be expected to continue without a pitcher who can help them to lead a game from beginning to end.

The Dodgers need one more starting pitcher.

“That’s a fairly safe guess, yes,” said Tracy, the Dodger manager. “The stress level needs to be taken off our bullpen. We’ve been using them for three-plus innings a night and, at some point, that’s going to catch up with you.”

Paul DePodesta, the Dodger general manager, agrees about adding pitching, but wonders where he will find it.

“Sure, that would be great,” he said. “But the hard thing right now is to find someone available who is better than what we have.”

Randy Johnson is available, of course, but DePodesta isn’t talking about him.

The Arizona Diamondbacks want at least one established major leaguer for Johnson -- the Yankees’ Jorge Posada was in the latest rumor -- and the Dodgers can’t afford to gut their roster, particularly their bullpen, to acquire him.

But there are others who will become available as teams start dropping out of contention, and the Dodgers need to be ready and willing.

Comebacks in their last seven victories is a splendid statistic

“We’ve got to stop doing it this way; I’m a nervous wreck,” said Bradley, smiling, he of the sacrifice homer.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Summer Heat

The Dodgers are on pace to have one of their best months since moving to L.A.

*--* Month Record April 1977 17-3 (.850) July 2004 16-3 (.842) July 1962 20-6 (.769) May 1962 21-7 (.750) July 1985 20-7 (.741) July 1997 20-7 (.741) April 1974 17-6 (.739) April 1981 14-5 (.737) April 1972 11-4 (.733) Sept.-Oct. 1965 22-8 (.733)

*--*