Sheffield Finishes Braves

It didn’t seem fair.

Kevin Brown, one of the fiercest competitors in the game and riding a five-game winning streak, opposed poor Jason Marquis, making his first major league start for the Atlanta Braves in his 25th career appearance.

But Marquis matched Brown on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, Marquis giving up two hits in six shutout innings, Brown three hits in eight shutout innings.

Gary Sheffield, though, made the pitching duel a moot point when his leadoff home run in the ninth inning gave the Dodgers a 1-0 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 53,006.

Brown and Marquis were gone before Sheffield’s solo shot, which came on Matt Whiteside’s second pitch, went over Walter Alston’s smiling image on the right-center field wall and made a loser of Whiteside (0-1).

Sheffield’s team-leading 11th homer was also the third time this season that a home run by him has been the difference in a 1-0 Dodger win, along with the Dodgers’ opening day victory against the Milwaukee Brewers and last Monday against the Florida Marlins.

Dodger closer Jeff Shaw (1-1), who worked a perfect ninth inning, picked up the win.

Sheffield wasn’t talking, though, and Brown insisted that he wasn’t frustrated by the lack of run support.

“It’s not nearly as frustrating as it would have been if we hadn’t won the game,” said Brown, who struck out nine and walked one while lowering his National League-low earned-run average to 1.09 and increasing his shutout string to 19 innings.

“Winning the game is what it’s all about.”

Six of the Dodgers’ past seven games have been one-run affairs and 19 of their 37 games being decided by one run.

“There were a lot of performances in that ballgame,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “Sheff time in the ninth, Kevin Brown for eight, Jeff Shaw for one and two defensive plays by Adrian Beltre that quite possibly saved a ballgame.”

Tracy was also impressed with Marquis’ performance.

“You can go ahead and add that guy to their inventory,” Tracy said. “He was awfully good.”

Marquis, with a 98-mph fastball, struck out five and walked one.

Almost lost in the pitching duel was the season debut of Beltre, who endured two abdominal surgeries within two months this off-season.

Beltre went one for three with an infield single, and he made the two plays at third base that prevented the genesis of Atlanta rallies. His presence was appreciated by the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation before his first at-bat.

After all, Saturday was four months to the day after Beltre underwent a botched appendectomy in his native Dominican Republic and two months to the day after he underwent an operation to close a resultant draining wound in his lower right abdomen.

“Believe me, [having Beltre in the lineup is] something that I’ve been waiting for . . . since back in November,” said Tracy, who was hired Nov. 1. “A situation like this lifts everybody up because he’s obviously a guy you were counting on and then lost him.”

As a result, Beltre became the sixth Dodger to play third base in 37 games thus season, following Chris Donnels, Jeff Reboulet, Phil Hiatt, Hiram Bocachica and Dave Hansen.

In his rehab stint, Beltre batted a combined .395 (15 for 38) with the extended spring training squad at Vero Beach, the Class-A Vero Beach Dodgers and triple-A Las Vegas.

“It was pretty good, even though the pitcher for the Braves was pretty nasty tonight,” said Beltre, who is still 10 pounds shy of his usual playing weight of 214. “I appreciate things so much more now.”

With their major league-leading 15th home win, the Dodgers maintained their half-game lead on the San Francisco Giants in the National League West.

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INSIDE

Detroit 4, Angels 1: Erstad’s wall-banger not good enough. D6