Big Production Number in Dodger Win

It doesn’t take one-game stints filling in for Jim Tracy to stoke the desire in Dodger bench coach Jim Riggleman to manage again.

“That desire has been there since the last day I managed in Chicago,” said Riggleman, who was fired by the Cubs in October 1999 after a season in which his team went from the playoffs to last in the National League Central.

Riggleman, who has spent the last four seasons with the Dodgers after serving as third base coach for the Cleveland Indians in 2000, was one of four finalists for the Seattle Mariner managerial position that went to Bob Melvin before the 2003 season.

Riggleman, 51, managed the Dodgers for a game last season when Tracy attended his son Chad’s high school graduation and filled in again Friday when Tracy served a one-game suspension following his run-in with umpire Joe West earlier in the week.

Tracy acknowledged that Riggleman was “overqualified” for a job in which he essentially serves as an assistant coach, providing Tracy with advice and gathering statistical information.

“You’re involved in a little bit of everything but no real one specific duty,” Riggleman said. “It’s a lot of bouncing ideas off of the manager and the manager bouncing ideas off of you.”

Said Tracy: “The great thing about Riggs is that I can throw any number of things off of him, knowing that he is not the least bit reluctant about giving me a very unbiased opinion. Whether I agree with it or not, he’s still going to give it.”

Riggleman, who had a 486-598 record as manager of the San Diego Padres from 1992 to ’94 and the Cubs from 1995 to ‘99, said he missed the competitive aspect of guiding a team and the responsibility for its success.

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Juan Encarnacion, whose batting average has not hit .250 since May 8, was dropped to seventh in the batting order Saturday for the third consecutive game and fourth time this season.

“As Juan is continuing to find his niche, the lineup makes sense to me the way it is right now,” Tracy said. “That’s not to say that if we see a number of balls hit very similar to the one that we saw last night in the top of the ninth inning [a run-scoring double],” things won’t change.

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Reliever Darren Dreifort pitched what Tracy called his finest inning of the season Friday when he struck out two Arizona Diamondbacks during a 1-2-3 seventh inning. “Command, location, velocity -- he had it all together,” Tracy said. “That only makes the bullpen situation that much better if he can do things like that on a regular basis.” Dreifort is 1-0 with a 3.80 earned-run average in 26 appearances.