A Win is a Win

Forget the fact that they were playing the lowly Brewers, a 4.72 team that is performing above expectations this year.

Forget the fact that they again fell behind 3-0. Forget the fact that the pitching staff gave up two hits to Chad Moeller, who prior to last night’s game was 6-for-60.

Forget the fact that the Brewers starter was not the same old Sheets. Big Ben has lost his last five starts, including twice to the Houston Astros, though to be fair, his teammates haven’t given him much run support.

And forget the fact that Eric Gagne again failed to inspire confidence, turning what should have been a routine save into a 27-pitch adventure. He gave up a run, a single, two walks, and two wild pitches, one of which allowed a run to score. He has still converted 112 of the last 114 save chances, but they’re coming a little harder. His E.R.A. this year is 4.32.

No, forget all those facts, and while you’re at it, forget the 12-2 start. The Dodgers are 15-24 since then, and they are not a very good team right now. Any win must be considered a positive sign. Until the team gets its rotation in order—the rookie D.J. Houlton gets the nod on Saturday after Wilson Alvarez complained of shoulder tendinitis—anything that keeps the team above .500 is welcome.

Houlton becomes the ninth man to start a game for the Dodgers, joining Jeff Weaver, Brad Penny, Derek Lowe, Odalis Perez, Elmer Dessens, Scott Erickson, Derek Thompson, and Alvarez. That octet has combined for a 17-22 record and a 4.67 ERA. It would be hard for Houlton, who has an ERA of 7.41 as a reliever, to do worse.

Extra Innings

In yesterday’s L.A. Times, Bill Shaikin criticized Wilson Alvarez for only going five innings in his latest poor outing. A few paragraphs later, he lauded Greg Maddux for a strong performance in which he pitched all of six innings. That’s a difference of just one inning, yet one pitcher was excellent and the other was supposedly atrocious?

The difference is that Alvarez gives up homer after homer, as does the guy who came in to replace him, Scott Erickson. In Monday’s game, Alvarez allowed two runs in the first, then threw two scoreless innings, and gave up two more in the fourth. The Dodgers halved the lead with two runs of their own in the bottom half of the fourth.

At that point, you’d think Jim Tracy would have seen enough of Alvarez. But he wants so much for somebody to succeed that he left the hefty lefty in for another inning, and Alvarez promptly gave up another homer. Erickson relieved him and did not give up another run, but the Dodger comeback stalled.

Since neither Alvarez nor Erickson seem capable of delivering a quality start, and since there isn’t another option on the horizon—even when Odalis Perez returns, the fifth starter spot remains empty—I say why not use the two in tandem. Tell them both that they will be pitching that day, and have them each go three innings—longer if they pitch well.

The fact that Alvarez is a lefty and Erickson is a righty will prevent opponents from stacking their lineups with one-sided hitters. If the Dodgers are winning after six (do I dare to hope with these guys pitching?) bring in Sanchez for the seventh, Brazoban for the eighth, and Gagne for the ninth, just like the textbook says. If they’re losing (As has lately been the case), divide up the last three among Carrara, Wunsch, Houlton, Carlyle, Dessens, Schmoll, Dreifort, and anybody else taking up roster spots.

Better yet, let J.D. Drew pitch. He’s so good at striking out these days that he might know something about getting opposing players to do the same.

Field of Dreams

I ventured into enemy territory over the weekend. . . and I was delighted. Not by the San Francisco Giants, who fumbled away a winnable game to the division-leading Padres. But by the stadium in which they play. Formerly called PacBell Park, it’s now known as SBC Park, as a result of a corporate merger of phone companies. But bby any name, the park is spectacular. It may be the best in baseball.

The location, overlooking San Francisco Bay, is nothing short of magnificent. With Barry Bonds out of the lineup, few kayakers hang out in the water outside the stadium hoping for a home run ball to land in the drink. Bt the marvelous view is available for the paying customers all game long. The vista is actually better as the seat price goes down: from the upper deck, you take in a panoramic view of the entire bya that’s unavailable to the swells in the box seats.

The park is neatly cleft in two. The north side is geared toward those arriving by public transportation, with bars and restaurants lining the street facing the park. The south side is for drivers, lined with parking lots and people tailgating. The $25 parking fee is designed to discourage driving, but it hasn’t done much good. The lots did not seem to be suffering for customers on Saturday, a sellout.

Fans can also arrive by boat—a ferry drops them off on the plaza beyond the outfield. There’s even free parking for bicycles. From there, even those without a game ticket can watch the game from a viewing area at field level just behind the right field warning track. There’s a time limit when it gets crowded, but not if it’s not.

Inside the park, the sight lines are all good, and the seats are comfortable. There are even cupholders in the cheap seats, though they are angled such that you spill the top eighth of your beer if you put a full cup in them. A foghorn goes off and blowholes spout streams of water whenever the home team hits a roundtripper.

Then there’s the food. San Francisco is a food capital, and the food available here reflects it. Los Angeles and New York could learn something. Those cities also consider themselves food destinations, but the concessions at the four stadiums in those two cities are all dreadful.

At SBC, the garlic fries get all the ink, but they’re just an appetizer for your choice of cheese steaks, bratwursts, turkey burgers, garden burgers, Italian sausages, Louisiana red hots, or clam chowder in a sourdough breadbowl. Finish it all of not with a plain old ice cream in a helmet cup, but a Ghirardelli hot fudge sundae.

One curiosity: Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown never played a game for the Giants, but it is apparently his glove that is reproduced in larger-than-life fashion atop the left field bleachers. Or maybe the old-school glove belongs to Homer Simpson Alexander.