Penny Is Primed for Dodger Return

The Dodgers have started 10-2 without Brad Penny, who stood Monday night in front of a couple of thousand people and threw fastballs past minor-league hitters, 79 pitches closer to resuming a big-league career for which the Dodgers once paid quite well.

Coming up on nine months since the trade-deadline deal, seven months since he walked off a mound mid-inning again, Penny said he would like the baseball back for Saturday’s game in Colorado, joining only a few pitchers ever to try to talk their way into a start at Coors Field.

The unreliable nerve in his right biceps was reliable enough, his fastball touched 97 mph in the last of six innings, he shouted a triple-A hitter off the field after a strikeout, and pretty much convinced a traveling Dodger front office that in time -- maybe in short time -- he could be their ace again.

“It was good,” Penny said. “I was throwing pretty hard, the hardest I have. I’ve thrown some bullpens pretty good, but you can’t simulate that, getting in a game, facing hitters.”

So, Penny asked nicely. Physical therapist Pat Screnar said it was good by him.

General Manager Paul DePodesta sat several rows from the grass at Cashman Field, where Penny, pitching for the Las Vegas 51s, had just struck out the last of nine batters. The Colorado Springs Sky Sox had five hits and scored twice against Penny, but more often swung late and trudged away, and DePodesta now must decide whether it is time.

“I don’t think I could ask for any more than that,” he said.

DePodesta’s is the pervading organizational sentiment after two weeks of baseball, and with Penny apparently on the verge of joining in, the Dodgers playing so well after 12 games and still waiting on the likes of Penny, Eric Gagne, Wilson Alvarez and Jayson Werth. They’ve aroused self-assurance in their own clubhouse, threads of belief from their wary fan base, relief from their management, and, perhaps, skepticism everywhere else. It being April, the Dodgers have done all they can in the short time they’ve had, which will do for now.

They’ve fit Repkos around Ledees and Dessenses around Ericksons, they carried 12 pitchers, and played through whatever was going on at first base, and waited on J.D. Drew, and then Penny threw hissing fastballs though the desert air with confidence and command. At least five months early for I-told-you-sos, and it probably wouldn’t fit his style no matter what September might bring, DePodesta said quietly, “It doesn’t give me or the organization any satisfaction at all. We just want to win and put a great product out there.”

If nothing else, 10 wins has given them some room when Jim Tracy really needs Gagne and gets immaturity, or when he arrives in May and they’re not scoring six or seven runs a game anymore.

“It brings us confidence and it certainly brings us patience with some of the guys that are on the disabled list,” DePodesta said.

They’ve gone slowly with Penny, and won’t rush him into a big-league uniform, and will consider over the next day or so the added variable of Coors Field, the hitters’ paradise. They’ll check on that biceps today, but six hours after he banged on doors on the outside of Cashman Field, searching for the one that led to the home clubhouse, Penny certainly appears to have kicked one in. Now the Dodgers hope that what happened in Las Vegas leaves here.

He arrived here in a metallic lime green Escalade, the name of his hotel -- “The Palms” -- painted across the doors, his Oklahoma cap on backward. His driver stood to the side, a Dodger blue duffel bag heavy against his curled fingers.

After finally asking a security guard, Penny discovered the entryway. He made three starts for the Dodgers last year. In the second, on Aug. 8, he grabbed his arm after two outs. Six weeks later, he tried again, and left in the fourth inning. He watched his team win the National League West, watched it play four playoff games, watched it prepare for another season, then watched it go out to the best start in baseball in 2005.

There’s only so much huntin’ and fishin’ a man can do to take his mind off his arm, his career. There’s only so much sleep a man can sacrifice. Seven months, he said, ought to do it.

“Something like that, it’s just so disappointing,” he said. “You sit there at night thinking about it. So many sleepless nights. I don’t want to feel that again.”