Opportunity Knocks and Dodgers Listen

The zeros were stretched across the scoreboard in a neat row, and Dodger Manager Bill Russell was growing concerned as he watched his team leave five runners on base--three of them in scoring position--in the first five innings against Pittsburgh Pirate starter Jason Schmidt on Sunday.

“You sit there and we had opportunities but we just couldn’t break through,” Russell said.

Patience, patience.

Helped by an error by left fielder Al Martin, the Dodgers scored three times in the sixth inning and took the lead for good in the seventh on Mike Piazza’s run-scoring single, capping an 11-hit attack that propelled them to a 6-3 victory before a crowd of 37,493.

“We hit the ball better than we’ve hit it in the last five games, so comparatively we did well,” said first baseman Eric Karros, whose two-run single in the sixth cut the Pirate lead to 3-2.

“But are we where we should be? No. We left guys in scoring position and we had some opportunities with less than two outs.

“We’re not yet where we need to be, but to characterize our ballclub after six games is ludicrous.”

They surely can be characterized as resilient, based on their rallies in the first and third games of this series. They trailed, 2-0, on Friday before pulling out a 5-3 victory and waited until the late innings again Sunday to get warmed up.

Once they got started, however, there was no stopping them. Every Dodger starter except Ramon Martinez had at least one hit and Todd Zeile, who was one for 16 entering the game, had two.

The second was an eighth-inning, two-run homer into the left-field seats off a 1-and-1 fastball from Richard Loiselle, Zeile’s first home run as a Dodger.

“I feel better than I’ve felt the last couple of nights,” said Zeile, who is three for five with three runs batted in since his 0-for-15 start.

“I think it was good the way we bounced back. . . . Saturday night [when he got his first hit] I lifted the monkey off my back.

“I felt more relaxed and I’m glad I was able to get some hits, especially after I left some men on base earlier [in the fourth and sixth innings].”

Said Russell: “He had been pressing and he wants to do well. It was nice to see him hit that home run. He’s going to drive in a lot of runs, and hopefully he got started today.”

Before the Dodgers started getting to the Pirate pitchers, though, Pittsburgh built a 3-0 lead in the fifth inning on consecutive singles by Tony Womack, Jermaine Allensworth and Al Martin, and one-out singles by Kevin Elster and Jason Kendall.

Martinez was lifted after that inning, when Russell decided 101 pitches were enough.

“He does throw a lot of pitches but he does need to be more consistent with his control,” Russell said of Martinez, who walked four and struck out five.

“He had a lot of three-ball counts. He’s just not there mechanically.”

While Darren Dreifort (1-0) held the Pirates to one hit over three innings, the Dodger offense awoke.

Raul Mondesi led off the sixth with a walk and went to third when Martin couldn’t hold onto Piazza’s shallow fly ball. Piazza ended up at second and scored behind Mondesi on Karros’ single to right-center.

Karros went to third when Martin was victimized again on Todd Hollandsworth’s double, a misplayed line drive that went off the top of his glove. Karros scored on Greg Gagne’s fielder’s choice grounder.

Batting in the seventh against left-hander Ricardo Rincon (0-1), Brett Butler lofted a fly to right that was misjudged into a double by Midre Cummings.

Wilton Guerrero sacrificed Butler to second. Loiselle relieved Rincon and got a third strike past Mondesi, but Piazza poked a 1-and-2 pitch through the left side of the infield to score Butler.

“It’s not easy managing against us because we’ve got a lot of guys who can do it,” Russell said.

Zeile, who heard some boos Saturday after he struck out in the fifth inning, heard nothing but cheers in the eighth inning Sunday when he lined Loiselle’s third pitch deep into the left-field seats after Hollandsworth had singled up the middle.

“The fans have been very good,” he said. “My parents, my wife, they noticed even though I was 0-for-15, there was still some support.

“You hear a lot more encouragement when you come back into the dugout. It’s a testament to the knowledge of the fans here.

“Fans know some people start slow and I traditionally start slow. It was just a little slower than I wanted to.”

The same applied to the Dodger offense Sunday. “It’s there,” Russell said. “It’s just a matter of getting it going consistently.”