They Might as Well Leave Their Gloves in the Dugout

He lost the ball in the chalk.

The explanation was painfully honest, chillingly odd, frighteningly ominous.

He lost the ball in the chalk.

“The ball hit the chalk ... the ball and the chalk are the same color,” Jose Valentin said Tuesday afternoon. “I was barely able to knock it down.”

He lost the ball in the chalk?

Valentin, who has played barely 10% of his career at third base, cost the Dodgers their season opener Tuesday when he muffed and poorly threw Moises Alou’s two-out grounder that had bounced off this newfangled thing known as a third base line.

A run scored, the Giants eventually won, 4-2, and you know what else should be the same color?

Paul DePodesta’s face and red.

A couple of hours after the general manager acknowledged that his off-season moves hurt the Dodger defense, the team proved it in a loss that looked exactly like the lost weekend against the Angels.

Get a lead early, give it away late, check on a forwarding address for Adrian Beltre and Alex Cora.

Seven errors in three games against the Angels.

Two errors in one awful afternoon against the Giants.

Four words for Dodger fans:

Get used to it.

Defense is what it is. Defense doesn’t get hot. Defense doesn’t slump.

Defense was Jim Tracy’s trademark. Defense was his sinkerball pitcher’s safety net.

Defense has long been Dodger championship baseball, until Frank McCourt and DePodesta became Dodger baseball, and suddenly it’s an afterthought that left Tuesday filled with second thoughts.

So they won’t miss Cora at second base?

With the score tied, 2-2, in the seventh inning, Cesar Izturis and Jeff Kent failed to turn a double play on a grounder by sore-legged Ray Durham.

Izturis’ throw was a tad slow, and Kent was knocked down, and although nobody blamed either man, there was also no question that Izturis and Cora would have made the play.

Durham was safe. He moved to second on a walk. He moved to third on a groundout. Then, with two out, he scored the eventual game-winner on Valentin’s error.

So they won’t miss Beltre at third base?

“We felt we had everyone where they needed to be,” Tracy said. “They hit the ball right down the line. We were in a position to make a play there. It didn’t work out.”

He lost it in the chalk?

Last season, it would have worked out.

Last season, Tracy and his coaches would position the players to win the close games and they did.

Defense makes a manager smart. Defense makes a good team great.

On a questionable hitting team that managed only five hits and struck out 11 times Tuesday, defense can be the great equalizer.

No more. Not around here. Just ask the, um, well, the general manager.

“Last year we had the best defense in the game,” DePodesta finally acknowledged Tuesday morning. “I wouldn’t make that claim today.”

Neither you nor several hundred thousand others across the Southland, I’m guessing.

DePodesta later said he thought the defense was still good, but I’m going to leave that part out because, right now, it just sounds silly.

While DePodesta makes the statements, it’s the guys on the field who have to live with them, the manager and coaches with the shorter contracts and shorter leashes and so much to lose.

Tuesday afternoon, Tracy scowled.

“The runs they got to win, we surrendered those runs,” he said.

Oh, yeah, it is runs, plural, because in the eighth inning, the Giants scored again, after Milton Bradley missed on a running attempt at a fly ball and Giovanni Carrara fell on his face while making a throw to first base.

But back to that Tracy quote.

When is the last time you heard him say that his teams have ever surrendered anything?

A hint: never.

Welcome to this bold new Dodger world, where, in the name of budget and Funnyball, a defending division champion is essentially operating with one hand tied behind its back.

A gloved hand.

The Dodgers amazingly survived after DePodesta’s clubhouse-gutting trade in July, but for them to overcome his latest bit of strange thinking may be asking too much.

Without Eric Gagne for at least a couple of weeks, they need defense.

Without the big-hitting middle of the order from last season, they need defense.

Without the $100-million payroll that Frank McCourt failed to deliver, they need defense.

Asking a 35-year-old man who has spent virtually his entire career at shortstop to be your starting third baseman ... is that defense?

Asking a 37-year-old second baseman who has never been known for his glove to learn new dances with the league’s best shortstop, is that fielding?

In the ninth inning Tuesday, Omar Vizquel made an Olympian hurdle over Kent to complete a double play, then J.T. Snow shoveled a nasty one-hopper to end the game.

Now that’s fielding.

The good news for Dodger fans, of course, is that there are 161 more games.

Hmmm.

That could also be the bad news.

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