McCourt: One Bat Is No Panacea

As Frank McCourt retreated from his pledge to add a hitter this spring, the new Dodger co-owner warned fans against falling victim to a perception that one more bat was the team’s missing ingredient.

“The idea that there’s a panacea -- you just grab one guy and everything’s solved -- I think is a little bit misguided,” McCourt said before Friday’s 5-1 Grapefruit League loss to the Boston Red Sox.

The Dodgers scored the fewest runs of any major league team last season. They have not fortified their offense since January, when right fielder Shawn Green said he would be “very upset” if they failed to do so before opening day.

Green agreed to work out at first base this spring so the Dodgers could pursue an outfielder as well as a first baseman. He said Friday that he expected to play right field this season “unless there’s a big move.”

Spring training is halfway done, with no deal.

“It’s obvious that was our weakness. It’s obvious too that a lot of guys, including myself, had down years,” Green said.

“If you go out and add an All-Star bat, it’s going to help. You can do it in spring training, but there might not be much available, or you can see how the team goes in the first couple months and assess the situation at that point.”

There is an urgency, he said, because the National League West title appears ripe for the taking.

“I feel like this group should win,” he said. “The more additions to the lineup, the better the team will do.”

McCourt declined to renew his vow to acquire a hitter before the season starts.

“I promised the fans we’d do what was necessary to put a winner on the field,” he said. “I think we’re a bit better than people are giving us credit for. That said, we are going to plug holes. It’s not going to stop opening day. It’s going to happen every day until the trading deadline.”

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McCourt said he had conducted more interviews for the position of president and chief operating officer, rejected last week by Red Sox executive Mike Dee.

“I certainly am prepared to fill that role myself, if need be, for a period of time,” McCourt said. Although he said that period would “more than likely” be brief, he added, “I don’t want to eat my words if I’m sitting here doing this five years from now.”

He said he would not fill the role with his wife, Jamie, the Dodgers’ co-owner and vice chair. He also indicated that front-office employees would not be secure in their positions until after he assessed the organizational structure. The Dodgers have one of the largest front-office staffs in the majors, and several baseball sources have said McCourt was likely to downsize.

“We’re going to go through the organization and evaluate everybody and every position,” he said.

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Hideo Nomo, the scheduled opening day starter, gave up three runs, three hits and four walks over three innings. The Dodgers lost for the sixth time in seven games. Their projected starting rotation -- Nomo, Odalis Perez, Kazuhisa Ishii, Jeff Weaver and Edwin Jackson --has a collective earned-run average of 10.73 through the first 11 spring games.