Dodgers Spoil Tracy’s Day

The Dodgers own this town and its team. Just because Jim Tracy and a cadre of coaches switched sides doesn’t change anything.

That was the message sent by the Dodgers in an 8-3 victory Monday in Tracy’s first home game as Pittsburgh Pirate manager in front of a sellout crowd.

The Dodgers scored three runs in the first inning and two in the second to quickly dissolve any eagerness Tracy felt about facing his former team. Anyway, he should have known -- the Dodgers are 16-3 at PNC Park and were 27-7 overall against the Pirates in Tracy’s five seasons.

This gorgeous, 6-year-old stadium overlooking the Allegheny River brings out the best in one Dodger in particular. Olmedo Saenz belted a two-run home run in the fifth inning to extend the lead to 7-0 after he had singled twice, making him 10 for his last 15 here, with four homers and 13 runs batted in.

“I guess it’s just that I track the ball better here than other parks,” he said. “I don’t know. Believe me, I try not to figure it out.”

The Dodgers also were trying not to overanalyze why they have been so productive early in games. They have scored at least two runs in the first inning of five of their last six, helping push their record to 4-3.

“The biggest reason is that we are being patient at the plate and getting good pitches to hit,” Manager Grady Little said. “Otherwise, I don’t know why we are scoring early, I’m just enjoying it.”

No one took greater pleasure in the early outburst than Odalis Perez, who held the Pirates scoreless until the sixth and picked up his first victory, barely breaking a sweat in an 85-pitch outing.

The left-hander was staked to a 5-0 lead after two innings in his first start five days ago against the Atlanta Braves, but he crumbled, giving up seven runs before being lifted in the fourth.

“I said to myself that this time it would be different,” Perez said.

Not much changed for Pirate starter Zach Duke, a top prospect who struggled all spring, going 0-4 with a 7.62 earned-run average after going 8-2 with a 1.81 ERA as a rookie last season. Pitching coach Jim Colborn -- who held the same job the last five years with the Dodgers -- is working with Duke’s mechanics, but the lessons don’t appear to have kicked in yet.

“My release point was all over the place,” Duke said, “and I couldn’t make key pitches.”

Jason Repko, batting second for the first time, homered on a two-strike fastball after leadoff batter Rafael Furcal had walked. Later in the first, Saenz singled and Cody Ross tripled for the third run.

Duke walked Perez with one out in the second, and after a double by Furcal, Repko tripled to score both runners. Saenz’s homer prompted Duke’s exit.

With the Pirates falling to 1-7, Tracy pointed out that last year’s Dodger team started 12-2, yet finished 71-91, a season so sour that he parted ways with the team, the first in an avalanche of moves that has reshaped the franchise.

And perhaps unwittingly, he used a statistical term -- sample size -- that was a favorite of Paul DePodesta, the general manager with whom he often clashed.

“This obviously isn’t the way you want to start,” Tracy said. “But it’s not a large enough sample size of games. It doesn’t mean this is the kind of team we’re going to be for the next six months.”

Tracy, who spent most of batting practice exchanging hugs and handshakes with Dodger players and other employees, became the first former Dodger manager to oppose the team since Leo Durocher managed the Houston Astros in 1973.

The few Dodgers who played under Tracy were happy to see him. Several compared his warm, personable style to that of Little.

“Tracy is a great person, a great manager,” Saenz said. “I appreciated a lot of things about him. He really cared about his players.”