Overtaxed Bullpen Is Forced to Keep Paying for the Trade

Trade winds indeed, these gusts that blew seagulls and hot dog wrappers and Dodger dreams around SBC Park late Saturday afternoon.

They lifted Yhency Brazoban to a mound where the kid did not belong.

They lofted Pedro Feliz’s drive into a place where the kid could not survive.

Heaven for the San Francisco Giants, a Feliz eighth-inning grand slam that gave them a 9-5 victory and championship life.

Haunting for the Dodgers, who lost this game in July.

That was when rookie General Manager Paul DePodesta decided to break up the league’s best bullpen by trading setup man Guillermo Mota.

That was when 23-year-old rookie Brazoban, in his second full season as a pitcher, essentially took Mota’s spot.

That was the beginning of the stretching and contorting that led to Saturday’s eighth inning, the score tied, bases loaded.

With 42,486 fans standing and screaming, with the 2,068-game history of this rivalry creeping with the shadows across the thick grass, the Trade swooped down like one of those hungry birds.

Brazoban, having already thrown 30 pitches in the inning and endured at-bats by Ricky Ledee and Ray Durham, should not have been left on the mound.

He’s too new to the position. He’s too inexperienced in the role. He appeared mentally exhausted. But he remained on the mound, because Manager Jim Tracy felt he had no other choice.

In that situation, the Dodgers needed heat. Mota had that heat, but he’s gone. Eric Gagne has that heat, but the Trade has worn him down so that he couldn’t have pitched this early in a tie game.

It is reasonable to wonder whether Tracy could have brought in Giovanni Carrara, but he’s a pitcher who, even at his best, may not have been right for the situation.

That left Brazoban, who was still throwing 97 mph, even if he increasingly had no idea where the ball was going.

“I didn’t see his velocity dropping,” Tracy said. “You want power at that point in the game. He was throwing strikes. Sometimes you have to give the hitters credit.”

But sometimes, you have to ask the general manager questions, and DePodesta should prepare himself.

This was the biggest game of the season so far, a chance for the Dodgers to build perhaps an insurmountable 3 1/2 -game lead over the Giants, yet now they are only 1 1/2 ahead and facing difficult Brett Tomko today.

This was a time when maybe folks would start forgetting their anger over the July 30 excavation of a first-place team, yet this morning, how can they talk about anything else?

For the record, with eight games remaining in the season, here’s how that trade featuring Mota and Paul Lo Duca for Florida’s Brad Penny and Hee-Seop Choi is looking:

* Penny’s chronically bad shoulder having depleted the pitching staff, Jose Lima started Saturday with a broken thumb and couldn’t get out of the fourth inning.

* The Dodger catchers, depleted with the loss of Lo Duca, are batting a combined .170.

* Choi is batting .158 since coming here.

* And Brazoban stayed in the game.

“He’s been fearless,” DePodesta said of his young pitcher. “He’s been in a lot of big games and gotten a lot of tough outs.”

Indeed, Brazoban still has a 2.10 earned-run average and was throwing hard until his final pitch Saturday. But in his last seven appearances, he has given up seven hits in eight innings with seven walks and just four strikeouts.

Before this season, the converted outfielder had never thrown more than 59 1/3 innings in a summer. This summer, in the major and minor leagues, he’s thrown 93 1/3 innings.

How does he feel? He wouldn’t say, declining to speak to the media. You know, kids and all.

“I don’t think anyone expects him to be perfect,” DePodesta said.

Fair or not, the same cannot be said for the young general manager, who will take much heat if the Trade keeps the team from breaking its 16-year playoff game losing streak.

One who will be relieved of heat today will be Shawn Green, returning from his one-day observance of the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur.

“Win one for the Kippur” read the note on the Dodger bulletin board Saturday and, indeed, this loss could not be pinned on him. Robin Ventura, Green’s replacement, doubled and scored.

Choi, a late-inning replacement at first base, made a running catch of a foul ball just before the grand slam.

All good things for the Dodgers on this day, just like Alex Cora and Milton Bradley’s home runs, Adrian Beltre’s leaping relay assist, Barry Bonds’ five walks and no runs scored.

All lost on a team huddled against trade winds that have never blown colder.

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