Dancing Dodgers Need a Few Steps

Twenty-seven games until October, and the Dodgers are awash in the sounds of first place.

Ramon Martinez bounces to salsa on the clubhouse stereo. The station is tuned to rock ‘n’ roll, and Greg Gagne turns his bat into an air guitar.

Outside, Darren Dreifort is complaining to an usher that the stadium loudspeakers are silent. The usher immediately phones upstairs. By the look of his dog-ugly boots, Dreifort wants country.

Nelson Liriano is howling in one corner. Bill Russell is chuckling in another.

“So what do you think?” the manager says Friday afternoon, smiling in the final stretch of a strained season. “Do you like this team?”

The answer comes from everyone, everywhere, each nook and cranny of an old ballpark getting gussied up for one more autumn bash.

Then the endorsement is muffled, another noise, familiar yet startling, a dirge on a dance floor.

It comes from the stubbled mug of Tom Candiotti when asked what, exactly, will keep this Dodger team from falling face-first into the September gravel like last year?

This new noise is a sigh.

“I guess I don’t know,” he said.

For all their high hopes, neither does anyone else around here.

They are leading a seemingly inferior team from up north. But they were leading a seemingly inferior team from down south last year before losing 10 of their final 14 games including the playoffs.

They are relaxed and playing well now. But they were relaxed and playing well then.

“It was the same thing last year, like a bright light that kept going and going,” Candiotti said. “Then all of a sudden it was like a Christmas tree light after the holidays. Just like that, it went out.”

Perhaps it would be prudent at this point to turn down the music and revisit the question.

What will keep the Dodgers from choking again?

There are five things, really.

* The handling of Todd Worrell.

No, you don’t make somebody else the closer. Not with only a month left.

Just because somebody has a closer’s arm doesn’t mean he has a closer’s state of mind.

Worrell, although running on fumes, still has enough of both.

What you do is, you make him less of a closer.

Stop asking him to retire three batters every night. Sometimes, let him retire one.

Sometimes let Scott Radinsky or Dreifort start the ninth, work the matchups, use Worrell only if needed, only for the final pitch, protect him the way Tony La Russa protects Dennis Eckersley.

Sorry, but pulling off a trade for Mark Wohlers or Mariano Rivera is just a little difficult this time of year.

* The return of Ramon Martinez.

Optimism says: He gave up one earned run in five innings in Pittsburgh in his comeback from the rotator cuff injury last week.

Realism says: Big deal, it took him 90 pitches to get through those five innings, and since when does this team only need him for five innings?

Martinez will start today against the Seattle Mariners, a team which racked him in his last appearance before going on the disabled list.

He needs a good performance to convince the Dodgers that he will again be their ace when they need him most.

(Brilliant or not, you pitch Chan Ho Park in a must-win game.)

* The survival of Mike Piazza.

If he continues at his current pace, the Dodger catcher will win the league MVP award and his team will win the division.

But in the past, this current pace has whipped him. September and October have been the worst months of his career, his legs wobbly and his bat slow.

Two words can fix that problem: Tom Prince.

Russell has already shown an awareness of this sort of thing when he let Eric Karros skip batting practice Friday amid a 1-for-10 slump.

He would be wise to do more of the same with Piazza, even if he is 10 for 10.

* The emergence of a left fielder.

All this talk of speed is great, but some combination of Brett Butler and Darren Lewis are going to have to contribute offensively from the eighth spot.

Of all the good moves by Fred Claire--even the jaded veterans are now praising him--he never quite adjusted to the collapse of Todd Hollandsworth.

He now has to hope somebody in that dugout adjusts for him.

Could it even be Hollandsworth, when he returns from the elbow injury? If you believe the rumors about the upcoming expansion draft, that will be the last thing he ever does in this uniform.

* The appearance of a surprise star.

This could be one of two guys. one old, one young, both arriving next week from Albuquerque.

Eddie Murray, a good clubhouse influence whose career should not be judged by his quotes, could catch up with a fastball and win a game.

Paul Konerko, probably be baseball’s minor league player of the year with 35 homers and 124 RBIs, could catch up with a fastball and win a place in Dodger lore.