Garciaparra needs to make the most of his third chance

VERO BEACH, Fla. -- He wanted a chance at forgiveness. He has just been granted two months of very public remorse.

He wanted a chance at another contract. He has just been granted two months of very public negotiations.

Nomar Garciaparra wanted one more chance to be Nomar Garciaparra.

Well, that chance is now. Nice to meet you. See you down at third base. Don’t blow it.

The most enigmatic of Dodgers veterans has suddenly become perhaps the most important, Garciaparra’s being pushed into the lineup as the starting third baseman Friday after his young competition, Andy LaRoche, tore up his thumb.

A starting third baseman who had 59 runs batted in last season.

A starting third baseman who had more errors (10) than homers (seven).

A starting third baseman who declined so precipitously from the previous season that everybody assumed he was hiding some horrid injury.

Nope. At age 34, Garciaparra just had a lousy season. Now, a year later, he wants the Dodgers to believe that he can find himself again.

Well, now they have no choice.

The competition with the kid LaRoche ended as quickly as a non-roster catcher named Danny Ardoin, attempting a pickoff against the St. Louis Cardinals, could throw the ball 90 feet and watch it ricochet into LaRoche’s right hand.

First things first.

Could Joe Torre please follow the lead of Grady Little and play Russell Martin every single inning of every single game for the rest of his Dodgers career?

Now, for the rest of the story.

It is all about Garciaparra.

As the spring games began, he essentially had the third-base job locked -- Torre’s fondness for veterans and all -- but LaRoche had recently been gaining ground.

LaRoche is a good kid, a hard worker, listens and learns and was hitting .350 with a homer.

Garciaparra was hitting .375 with his first homer coming earlier in Friday’s game.

Oddly, one inning before LaRoche’s injury, Garciaparra was struck in the wrist by a pitch and eventually wound up going to the hospital with LaRoche.

For a couple of hours, Dodgers fans everywhere found themselves cheering for competing X-rays.

Did your horse win? Chances are, it didn’t.

If you are like many Dodgers fans, you wanted LaRoche to take the job.

Now, he probably won’t show up at full strength until the middle of May.

Now, maybe you are cheering for the Dodgers to trade for Chicago’s Joe Crede or Detroit’s Brandon Inge?

Easy. Enough. Ned Colletti needs to save his ammo for an eventual trade for a starting pitcher.

Garciaparra batted .307 with 19 RBIs in the first month of last season. It was his best month of the year.

If this is an issue of his brittle body breaking down, well, he should be fine until LaRoche returns.

There is also the matter of convincing a six-time All-Star that he has to accept part-time play at a variety of position and pinch-hitting spots.

This could be Garciaparra’s eventual role with the Dodgers, but he is the competitive sort who would never swallow it unless he was given a fair opportunity to stay in the starting job.

This chance will be fair. This will be as many as two months to show that his skills have not yet disappeared.

If he does well, he keeps the job and LaRoche returns to the minor leagues.

If Garciaparra struggles, he goes quietly to the bench while LaRoche gives the team a burst of early-season energy.

LaRoche’s injury simplifies a complicated situation, and gives a popular veteran one last gasp at hometown greatness.

That doesn’t make it any better, just more workable.

That also doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers starting third baseman will be a guy who, among the major leagues’ 24 third basemen with at least 425 at-bats last season, ranked 22nd in homers and 20th in RBIs.

By the way, what did happen to Garciaparra last season?

I’ve asked and asked and, in typical elusive Garciaparra fashion, he has never quite given me a straight answer.

When pressed about it again earlier this week by Times reporter Dylan Hernandez, Garciaparra talked around the issue as usual before finally saying, “I have an idea. Maybe I’ll talk about it one day.”

That talk needs to be action. That day is now.

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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.