Hole at Third Is Becoming a Bottomless Pit for Offense

It is not too much to ask the owner of the Dodgers for a third baseman who can hit and catch, who can stand behind Milton Bradley and force fastballs to the last run producers in the lineup, and ease a small part of Jim Tracy’s daily torment.

We were all thrilled Saturday, when a Dodger third baseman -- Antonio Perez, this time -- stepped in during the seventh inning, fouled off a couple of two-strike pitches from John Lackey and then drove in the Dodgers’ only run since Wednesday.

The moment could not have been more touching had tears streamed down the faces of every one of Jim Colborn’s pitchers. Ushers swooned. Women clutched their babies.

And yet it served only to illustrate the disaster third base has been for the team that fell out of the Adrian Beltre negotiations, or pulled out, or forgot to return a phone call, or whatever the story is today.

Perez was Tracy’s sixth third baseman since Beltre left. He was the sixth since May 3, as a matter of fact, and the fourth since May 11. This is not a position, it’s a bowling shoe; spray it with Lysol and give it to the next guy.

Since April 21, the day after the Dodgers were 12-2 and charting the parade route, their third basemen are batting .184. In those 28 games, 18 of them losses, they have nine runs batted in, or one fewer than one Yankee third baseman had in one game against the Angels.

Over the better part of two months, 42 games’ worth, the Dodgers have gotten a league-worst .199 average out of what typically is an offensively oriented position, and two home runs, both by Jose Valentin, both in the season’s first week.

While we’re all for giving the underprivileged a chance, and it is a joy to follow along with prospects Willy Aybar, Joel Guzman and Andy LaRoche in Baseball America, there’s a division to be won, there’s faith to be rewarded and there’s a third baseman in Florida who appears to be available.

Fans of Frank McCourt’s baseball team attend his baseball park 47,000 at a time, so now it’s time for him to return the gesture, load up some of that dry powder he talked about over the winter, and have his general manager go get a third baseman.

A National League general manager said this week the Florida Marlins are amenable to trading Mike Lowell, and that’s as good a place as any to start. Lowell is 31, three times an All-Star, will hit somewhere around 30 home runs and makes plays at third. He is expensive --

$8 million annually through 2007 -- but that shouldn’t bother McCourt, whose payroll is about $87 million, or about $13 million less than he said we should expect. If $8 million is too much or three years too long for the organization whose prospects are stacked up over third base, and if Odalis Perez’s injury and Scott Erickson’s ineffectiveness make starting pitching the greater priority, then Joe Randa is making $2.2 million in Cincinnati, and the Reds are done in the NL Central.

General Manager Paul DePodesta offered the reminder that the Dodgers remain among the league leaders in runs scored, and it bothered him little that they have scored three or fewer runs 19 times in 29 games. Third base, he said, is not yet the pressing issue.

“I’m looking at it as an opportunity, a great opportunity, to find out more about our young kids,” he said. “If we can’t try to break in a kid when we’re leading the league in runs, then when can we? I’m not saying that’ll go on indefinitely. We’ll see how it goes over the next six weeks, eight weeks. If we find out that we need help, then certainly we’ll look to do something.”

For his purposes, DePodesta splits the season into three parts; the first two months are spent analyzing the roster, the second two months repairing it. We’re 10 days from June, the reparation period.

Here’s what he might consider: There is a third-base problem and there are depth problems, not all of which will be solved by the return of Jayson Werth, and a winnable division is beginning to drift away. Tracy had to take his only shot at the Angels with two on in the seventh inning Saturday, when Olmedo Saenz batted against right-hander Brendan Donnelly, a matchup that favored Mike Scioscia. His other option there: Oscar Robles.

So, the early days of the season come and go, the Dodgers trudge from the field, and if you’re not sure who’s playing third base today, well, welcome to the manager’s office.

It’s Perez. Or Saenz. Or Robles. Or Mike Edwards.

“I think you’re looking for as much consistency as you can get from a defensive standpoint,” Tracy said late Saturday afternoon. “And you’re looking for enough offensive production to take some of the onus off a leadoff man and three other guys in the middle of the lineup. You need an awful lot from them. That’s a little much to ask from four guys -- [Cesar] Izturis, Bradley, [Jeff] Kent, [J.D.] Drew. It’s not an easy answer. It’s not. That’s something I wrestle with every single day.”

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Players’ union chief Don Fehr does his job like most Americans, only with a much graver expression and using much larger words.

Like Bud Selig, Fehr probably has one more labor negotiation left in him, in 2006, at which point he could step aside and let someone such as Gene Orza or Mike Weiner fight the next commissioner, who undoubtedly will be George W. Bush, assuming the owners don’t hire one of the hotel valets from their next executive council meeting.

If there is anything less enlightening than a handful of owners massing behind a drug program set forth by the commissioner -- who is bought and paid for by, yes, the owners -- it is Selig’s whiplash progression from steroid ignorance to Defcon 1.

This isn’t to say that Selig is wrong. He’s not. He’s late, but not wrong. In fairness to Selig, we were all late. Honestly, however, only one of us was running baseball at the time, and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t canceled any World Series lately.

Now that Selig has joined up with Congress -- an owners’ resolution professing their admiration is due any day -- Fehr and his players are on their own. Really, there appears to be only one choice: Take Selig’s 50-game, 100-game, you’re-out disciplinary progression or take your chances with Congress, whose progression is two years and then you’re out.

In the words of that great Texas Ranger left-hander, ya’ gotta know when to hold ‘em, and know when to fold ‘em.

But, save a little compassion for Fehr, who isn’t in the business of forfeiting collectively bargained player rights based solely on the whims of baseball owners and Washington legislators. Really, Fehr has done a substantial amount of giving on the issue -- rightfully so -- and it wasn’t that long ago that he was arm-in-arm with Selig before those same members of Congress. Fehr has an equal obligation to save jobs and guard the welfare of his players, which, in this case, means flushing the sport of performance-enhancing drugs, which means yielding further.

It would be less complicated for Fehr, perhaps, had Selig been more consistent in his path to zero tolerance.

Working backward, Selig, on May 16: “In the event that we are unable to achieve agreement with the MLBPA on this matter and I am left with no reasonable alternative to address this critical issue, I will support federal legislation.”

Selig, on May 12: “Whether the program is working today is not the issue because I think we would agree with the players’ association it is working. That isn’t the issue because the integrity issue transcends that.”

Selig, on March 17: “Critics of the current program [are] well-intentioned, [but] not well-informed about baseball’s multifaceted campaign against such substances.... There is no evidence there was ever a widespread problem.”

Selig, on March 8: “When you look back on it, we’ve addressed it, the players’ association has addressed it. Go back on all the history, what they did and what they didn’t do, it’s not relevant. It’s been addressed. We’ve moved ahead.... Slamming people around or leaving the inference that this sport has not dealt with its problem, that’s just wrong. And, damn it all, it should be said.”

Selig, on March 5: “I’m very comfortable in telling you I believe we’ve not only dealt with our problem, but we will finish what we started seven years ago this year. There will always be some exceptions, but I’m very comfortable in what we’ve done.”

So, Fehr’s target keeps moving. Even the target’s target keeps moving.

Selig, on May 1: “I continue to believe that time is of the essence in addressing this issue.”

Selig, on Feb. 26: “I am directing all club officials and employees to refrain from further comment on the BALCO proceedings specifically and performance-enhancing drugs generally. In addition, with the full support of the Major League Baseball Players Assn., I am directing each club to meet with its players and urge them to refrain from any and all public comment on this topic at this time.”

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Not-so-hot corner

With Adrian Beltre now in Seattle and opening-day starter Jose Valentin out with a knee injury, the Dodgers have gotten little production at third base. How this season’s Dodger third basemen compare to what Beltre did last year.

*--* 2004 AB HR RBI AVG BELTRE 598 48 121 334

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2005

*--* AB HR RBI AVG JOSE VALENTIN 67 2 12 194 MIKE EDWARDS 40 0 2 275 NORIHIRO NAKAMURA 39 0 3 128 OLMEDO SAENZ 8 0 1 375 OSCAR ROBLES 19 0 0 105 ANTONIO PEREZ 4 0 1 500 Totals 177 2 19 263

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