Bowa hopes Ramirez returns

Thoughts of a season without Manny Ramirez have unsettled Larry Bowa.

Instead of looking forward to the start of spring training, baseball’s most famous third base coach said he finds himself imagining what the Dodgers might look like this season if Ramirez isn’t re-signed.

It’s not a pretty picture.

“Without Manny in the lineup I won’t say we can’t score runs, but we’ll be like we were at the beginning of last year,” said Bowa, who was Manager Joe Torre’s right-hand man with the New York Yankees and first hire with the Dodgers.

The Dodgers were 54-55 and in second place in the National League West before they acquired Ramirez. With the All-Star outfielder in their lineup, they were 30-23 in the regular season, claimed the division title and won their first playoff series in 20 years.

But the Dodgers remain stalled in their negotiations with Ramirez, who became a free agent after the season. General Manager Ned Colletti said he spoke Wednesday with Ramirez’s agent, Scott Boras, but that significant progress wasn’t made. Meanwhile, Boras is saying that he has entered negotiations with clubs other than the Dodgers on Ramirez’s behalf.

The holding pattern concerns Bowa.

“Manny is sort of that constant in that lineup,” Bowa said. “With the kids, you don’t know what you’re going to get.”

That includes the pitching staff, which kept the Dodgers within striking distance until Ramirez was acquired. But Derek Lowe, Brad Penny, Takashi Saito and Chan Ho Park were lost to free agency.

“Like [Clayton] Kershaw,” he said. “Can he win 15-20 games? No question. Does he have the talent? No question. But you don’t know.

“With Johan Santana, before the season starts, you can put down 15 wins. With Derek Lowe, you can put down more than 200 innings pitched.”

Because of the team’s youth, Bowa said that if the Dodgers re-sign Ramirez, it’s important they do so by the start of camp.

“I think it’s important, especially [with] a key player. Just being around, getting that rapport, it helps out.”

An unsigned Ramirez would be a distraction, he said.

“Everyone’s going to be talking about it,” Bowa said. “If we had an all-veteran team, it’d be a non-issue. But we don’t have a veteran team.”

That’s something Bowa won’t have to worry about, according to Boras, who said he expected Ramirez to be signed by the opening of spring training.

“I can’t put a timetable on this, but I know that spring training is a long time away,” Boras said. “At this pace, I anticipate that we would have something done by then. Things are progressing for Manny.”

Players will start to report to spring training Feb. 14.

Told what Boras said, Colletti replied, “Well, if that’s accurate, that’s encouraging because there appears to be some resolution in the near future.

“We’re still hopeful we can come to an agreement with him. We realized how popular he was here and how good he was for the team.”

The Dodgers seem to think other teams won’t better the two-year, $45-million contract they offered Ramirez in November that has since expired. Boras seems to think otherwise.

“The train has left the station,” he said.

Boras didn’t provide any details about Ramirez’s other suitors. Colletti, who spoke to Boras on Wednesday for the first time in nine days, said he is waiting for a counteroffer to the team’s initial proposal. The Dodgers won’t consider improving their offer until they get an indication that Ramirez would be open to scaling back his demands for a four- or five-year deal.

With that stalemate far from resolved, the Dodgers are turning their attention to adding a starting pitcher. But that is also proving tough.

Former Angels right-hander Jon Garland reportedly reached an agreement on a one-year deal with the Arizona Diamondbacks, leaving Randy Wolf and Braden Looper as the Dodgers’ only viable options on the free-agent market.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Bus issue unresolved

The fate of bus service from Union Station to Dodger Stadium remained in limbo as the Los Angeles City Council’s transportation committee took no action on the issue.

Neither the city nor the Dodgers want to pay for bus service, which began in July and proved popular. The cost of service, which was free to riders last year, could range from $383,000 to $630,000 for the season. The city is facing a budget shortfall and the Dodgers say they are contributing plenty to city coffers through taxes and that it’s the job of government to provide mass transit.

The city and the Dodgers are continuing talks about finding sponsors to pay for the buses, city and team officials said.

-- Steve Hymon