Dodgers Waste No Time Making Great Impression

SAN DIEGO — A couple of weeks ago and about 500 miles from here, uncertain Dodgers walked into an unsteady clubhouse.

The team that couldn’t catch had just dropped the ball.

The team with lousy chemistry had just blown a lead.

The team that was going to lose many games had just lost its first one.

Jim Tracy looked around the corner from his office and saw a bunch of strange heads stuck into strange lockers.

For the first time in his five opening days as Dodger manager, Tracy walked outside and joined them.

For the first time, Tracy held an opening-day postgame meeting.

“What had just happened on the field opened the door to all kinds of, ‘I told you so’ things being said,” he recalled of that San Francisco speech. “I wanted to cut that off at the pass. I didn’t want us to define who we were by one game.”

Who would have thought that, at that moment, the defining would begin?

Who would have thought that, from that moment, they would lose only once more in the next two weeks?

“It’s like Trace said that first day, this is a marathon, and that no matter what happens, you roll with it,” said Jason Phillips.

And so they have rolled, through nutty deficits and nerve-rattling errors, with five different first basemen and a couple of different Jose Valentins and only one solid, steady, smiling Milton Bradley.

And so they have rolled, nameless shirts and faceless players, through the increasingly outstretched arms of stunned fans along the prettiest first mile in Los Angeles Dodger history.

“I know, people are saying, it’s early, it doesn’t matter,” said Phillips. “But you get this kind of start, this kind of lead on people, you bet it matters.”

Especially in this town, under this ownership, in this season, the Dodger players providing the stability that the front office could not, overcoming a winter of communication problems, filling the headlines with the only baseball language that matters.

Wins, 12 in their first 15 games.

Drama, with five wins in their final at-bat in only the first two weeks.

Hope, with their best starting pitcher scheduled to show up for the first time on Sunday.

The Dodgers lost, 6-1, to the San Diego Padres here Tuesday, foiled in their attempt to continue moving toward the best start in the franchise’s 116-year history.

But they have indeed created an energy that stirs.

They have offered introductions that have resonated.

That’s one strong handshake.

Their handshake couldn’t have been any stronger.

“The winning helps everyone know everyone else,” said Valentin.

We didn’t know Jeff Kent. We know him better now, the 3-and-0 pitch he hit for a homer, the ability to somehow move that square body in front of nearly every squirrelly grounder.

The guy who has yet to smile, because he says there really isn’t anything yet to smile about.

“I guarantee you right now that those teams we have left in the dust, they’re thinking, ‘No big deal, the season is six months, we’ll be right there at the end,’ ” said Kent, who signed here from the Houston Astros. “I know, because I was on one of those teams last year.”

No smile until, well, check back in September.

“We need to be the same way, thinking no big deal, thinking six months,” said Kent. “Yeah, I get a little different in the playoffs.”

We didn’t know Derek Lowe. We know him now, his sinker found to be almost untouchable by these new National League hitters.

We didn’t know J.D. Drew. We know now he doesn’t rattle easily, beginning a new job going zilch for 25, then calm enough to go 11 for 24.

We didn’t know Valentin. But we can’t help but like him, seeing as he throws away a game one minute, saves a game the next minute, then shows up afterward to explain all of it.

“You do something in front of 40,000 people, you can’t hide,” Valentin said. “I will blame myself. I will take the heat. To do anything else is to hurt the team.”

We didn’t know Bradley. We’ll never know Bradley.

But, goodness, did you see him Thursday, with two hustling, flinging assists from center field in the late innings of a game in which his team trailed by five runs?

In this same game, both Valentin and Tracy were ejected for arguing strikes. In the ninth inning. With the team trailing by those same five runs.

“We play hard in these early games, keep going good, it takes some of the pressure away from the September games where everybody is hurt and tight,” said Valentin.

It still says here that this team faces big obstacles before then.

The defense -- which tied for the league lead in most errors (13) before Thursday -- will need improving.

The bullpen -- which has been fortunate to survive the increasingly, mysteriously prolonged absence of Eric Gagne -- will need help.

And here’s guessing that the offense won’t keep averaging six runs a game.

General Manager Paul DePodesta’s door cannot be closed. Owner Frank McCourt’s wallet must remain open. His stadium renovation nightmare may be just beginning.

But, for the moment, the players have taken some of the heat off both of them, as players only can, these 2005 Dodgers, nice to meet you.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.