Guerrero Is Still On--14 Straight; It’s Dodgers, 10-0

After a 10-0 blowout, comparisons come easy between winners and losers.

“You look at this team compared to the Cubs,” Dodger shortstop Bill Russell said, “and they’ve got the better team.”

On paper, Russell’s analysis may have been as sound as the Magna Carta, the Hippocratic Oath or Pedro Guerrero’s contract.

On the field, however, the Dodgers put Russell’s theory through the shredder, carving up the Cubs with 15 hits, 8 for extra bases, including home runs by Guerrero (a two-run shot), Greg Brock (a three-run job) and Mike Marshall (a grand slam).

And while Guerrero remained unstoppable--running his consecutive on-base streak to 14 straight at-bats with a disputed ground-rule double and two walks in addition to his 23rd home run--Jerry Reuss was shutting down the Cubs on seven hits for his 37th career shutout.

“Guerrero--my God, he’s really hot,” Cub Manager Jim Frey said after Guerrero drew within two of Ted Williams’ big-league record for consecutive times on base, set in 1957.

“It seems like every time he hits the ball, it goes in the seats.”

The Cubs may have come within one game of winning the National League pennant last season, but at the moment, they’re treading water in fourth place in the East, while the Dodgers are dazzling ‘em at home (Friday’s crowd was 41,231) and also in San Diego, where 28,811 at Jack Murphy Stadium sullenly watched part of Friday’s national telecast on the big screen there.

Don’t get Russell wrong. At the moment, he’s just as impressed by the Dodgers as anybody else who has seen them go from 5 games back on the Fourth of July to 4 1/2 games ahead of the Padres three weeks later.

It’s just that Russell’s memory extends back to May, when the Dodgers were a threat only to themselves.

“I can’t remember a team starting off like we did and turning it around this much,” Russell said.

“We had other teams who turned it around--in ‘82, we were 10 1/2 back and turned it around in 13 days--but a team like this, so inexperienced, and the different lineups we were putting out there, who could foretell the future?

“We had to get better. We couldn’t get any worse.”

Reuss was just as blunt. “We were a poor ballclub,” he said, “but once Pete moved back to the outfield, it started a chain of events. He started hitting, then Brock started hitting, now (Ken) Landreaux’s hot, and (Mariano) Duncan is on base, stealing.

“And the defense, which was probably the chief complaint of the pitchers, is better. I may be wrong, but I think it’s a result of everybody hitting, now concentrating on defense.

“There seems to be a collective feeling of hit it to me, I’ll catch it and we’ll go back in there and score a couple of runs.

“As a pitcher, I love it. I can go out there and throw the ball over the plate and figure somebody will catch it. And now we’re anticipating which one will be the big inning.”

Friday night, the big inning looked as if it might be the first, when Landreaux singled and Guerrero drove a ball into the right-field corner that was headed for the seats--until it was intercepted by Steve Spencer, a 20-year-old fan from Thousand Oaks sitting in the first row of Aisle 54.

Spencer said the ball cleared the railing for a home run before he touched it; first-base umpire Bruce Froemming disagreed, however, and sent Landreaux back to third and Guerrero to second with a ground-rule double.

“It was a simple play,” Froemming said deadpan afterward. “Nice way to start the game out, wasn’t it?”

Guerrero made it academic after a Landreaux double in the third, driving a full-count pitch from Cub starter Dick Ruthven over the 370-foot sign in right.

“There’s no way you can pitch him,” Russell said in admiration. “That home run, he hit it at the worst possible part of the day (late afternoon, when the ball explodes out of the shadows) and on a 3-and-2 curveball. You can’t fool him. They threw him everywhere, in and out, in the dirt, everything, and it didn’t matter.”

Not anxious to be burned by Guerrero again, Ruthven walked him after Landreaux’s third straight hit and second double in the fifth, only to have Brock hit a screamer into the seats in right for his 16th home run and a 5-0 lead in the fifth.

A new Cub pitcher, Warren Brusstar, started the sixth by plunking Mariano Duncan in the right foot. Duncan eventually went to the hospital for precautionary X-rays that proved negative, but not before stealing second and taking third on a wild pickoff throw by Brusstar that hit him in the shoulder.

Duncan eventually was erased on a fielder’s choice, but Brusstar loaded the bases for Marshall by walking Guerrero and Brock, and Marshall responded by hitting the first pitch for his first home run since June 10 at Cincinnati.

Marshall had hit 10 home runs before having his appendix removed on June 20. Since coming back nine days ago, he has been choking up on the bat.

“It was very unexpected,” Marshall said of his third career grand slam. “They’ve been pitching around those other guys (Guerrero and Brock) justifiably, and you have to give Pete and Greg credit for not chasing bad pitches. I didn’t want to hit the ball on the ground; I was just trying to hit it in the outfield somewhere.”

He did, on the other side of the fence in left field. In the eighth, the Dodgers added their final run when Len Matuszek doubled and Mike Scioscia singled to become the first Dodger this season to collect four hits in a game.

The Dodgers, who have now won four in a row, have outscored their opponents, 32-4, in that span. Is it time to break up the Dodgers, someone asked Manager Tom Lasorda in jest.

“You’re not the same guy who said put ‘em together,” Lasorda said.

Dodger Notes

In his last five games, Pedro Guerrero is batting .692 (9 for 13) and his batting average is now .327. “The way I feel, there’s no way they’re going to get me out, and even if I strike out, I still want to go right back out there,” Guerrero said. He hasn’t been retired since Rick Reuschel struck him out swinging on a 3-and-2 pitch in the fourth inning Tuesday night. . . . Jerry Reuss, who pitched out of a first-and-third, no-out situation in the second by getting Larry Bowa to hit into a force-out and Dick Ruthven to ground into a double play, now trails only Nolan Ryan (55) and Steve Carlton (54) in career shutouts among active National League pitchers. “My last two starts I’ve struggled right at the beginning of the game,” said Reuss, who was paid a visit by pitching coach Ron Perranoski just before getting out of the jam. “But I’m a streak pitcher. When you pitch well, you win a lot of games.” . . . Right-fielder Mike Marshall, on the late-afternoon sun that bedeviled Cub outfielders Bob Dernier and Keith Moreland: “It was as tough today as I’ve ever seen it. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and there wasn’t any haze to cut down the glare.” . . . Dave Anderson, who started the game at third, came out after the sixth inning because his back was bothering him. . . . Mariano Duncan was taken to Centinela Hospital and was reported to have a bruised little toe on his right foot. . . . Reliever Tom Niedenfuer has a pulled muscle in his side and is on a day-to-day basis.

Guerrero’s Streak

July 23: Pittsburgh At-Bat Pitcher Outcome 3 Reuschel Double 4 Scurry Double

July 24: Pittsburgh At-Bat Pitcher Outcome 1 D. Robinson Walk 2 Single 3 Walk 4 Winn Walk

July 25: Chicago At-Bat Pitcher Outcome 1 Fontenot Walk 2 Home Run 3 Single 4 Sorensen Hit by Pitch

July 26: Chicago At-Bat Pitcher Outcome 1 Ruthven Ground-rule double 2 Home Run 3 Walk 4 Brusstar Walk