Eager Perez Can’t Deliver

In a bolder moment last week, Odalis Perez all but demanded the ball in the Dodgers’ playoff opener.

“I want it to be on me,” he said.

It was, in horrifying fashion. He got the ball and, in the first postseason start of his career, Perez delivered his shortest start of the season. The St. Louis Cardinals got to him for six runs -- including three home runs -- before dismissing him in the third inning of an 8-3 rout.

“I didn’t want to go out there and put this team down right away,” he said. “Even if we had 53 comebacks, when you’re down six runs already in the third inning, there’s no way.

“This is different baseball right now. The playoffs are not about scoring a lot of runs.”

There were no alternate goats in the Dodger clubhouse. Even the irrepressible Jose Lima could not conceal his dismay at Perez’s outing. If the Dodgers win one of the next two games in the best-of-five series, Perez is scheduled to start again Sunday.

“If it comes to Sunday, I hope he is the man,” Lima said. “He needed to have a good game today. I don’t know what happened. Sometimes you’re disappointed.”

Said pitching coach Jim Colborn: “I was disappointed. We all were.”

In the first inning, Perez got the first two out, then gave up a home run to Albert Pujols.

In the second, although the Cardinals did not score, Perez committed an error when he caught Edgar Renteria off second base but dropped the ball before he could make the pickoff throw.

In the third, Perez got the first two out but never got the third. St. Louis scored five times, with home runs by Larry Walker and Jim Edmonds surrounding a walk, a single and a double.

The Dodgers, stumped for a convincing explanation, offered a variety of theories, including nerves. Colborn said he would have to review game film to determine whether Perez threw poor pitches, threw the wrong pitches or tipped his pitches, especially to Walker and Edmonds.

“Both those guys try to steal pitches,” Colborn said. “That could be one of the theories I explore.”

Colborn said Perez had tipped his pitches earlier in the season and might have done so again but the Cardinals were in no mood to entertain the suggestion they knew what was coming.

“No,” St. Louis third baseman Scott Rolen said. “We’re starting that in the playoffs again?”

Said Edmonds: “We were just trying to put the ball in play. I’m not here to scout the Dodgers. I’m here to help our team win.”

Perez said he did not believe he was tipping pitches, just throwing bad ones. “The pitch to Edmonds was down the middle of the plate,” Perez said. “There’s no way to miss that.”

After one turn through the lineup, the Cardinals decided to take the fastball and pounce on the breaking ball, Lima said, and Perez failed to adjust.

“I don’t think he was rattled,” Manager Jim Tracy said. “Once Walker hit the home run, he maybe lost concentration for a brief moment. With their lineup, you can’t afford to do that.”

Perez had a 3.25 earned-run average this season, best of anyone scheduled to start in this series. But his series ERA is 20.25, and he can only hope the Dodgers win Game 2 or Game 3 so he might redeem himself in Game 4.

“We lost the game,” Perez said. “We haven’t lost the series.”