Green Likes Miller Time

As far as Shawn Green is concerned, the National League schedule makers made a good call by sending the Dodgers to Miller Park to open a three-game series tonight against the Milwaukee Brewers.

Green, stuck in one of the worst offensive ruts of his 10-year major league career, has ripped the cover off the baseball at the 3-year-old ballpark.

He is hitting .486 with 10 homers and 17 runs batted in at Miller Park, his highest average at any major league field and his best homer total anywhere except Dodger Stadium, Skydome in Toronto and Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix.

Green set or tied his career single-game records at Miller Park on May 23, 2002, when he amassed a major league-record 19 total bases during a six-hit, six-run, four-homer, seven-RBI day.

“No one in this game needed this more than I did, because I was getting pretty down,” Green said after a historic outburst that followed a five-game stretch in which he failed to hit the ball out of the infield.

Green entered that series in a one-for-19 slide, batting .231 with three home runs.

Two seasons later, Green is batting .225 with seven homers. The first baseman has hit .173 in May and has not homered in more than two weeks, though he said he was encouraged Sunday after collecting two singles and driving in a run in a 5-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves.

“At this point, hits are kind of more important for future games than even hitting the ball hard,” Green said. “It’s nice to get some hits.”

Still, Green contributed to the Dodgers’ downfall by lining out with runners on first and second in the third inning and striking out with a runner on second in the ninth, prompting Manager Jim Tracy to say “that’s not Shawn Green.”

Said Green: “We had some opportunities and hit some balls at people and didn’t quite get the breaks.”

But Green said the Dodgers were in “great shape right now” because they were tied with the San Diego Padres atop the National League West despite losing nine of 10 games.

“We’ve gone through a funk and hopefully we get out of it the next few days,” Green said. “If we can get hot, it will all be forgotten.”

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Even though right fielder Juan Encarnacion has yet to make the expected impact on offense and Jason Grabowski has exceeded expectations as a replacement outfielder, Tracy said he would not consider a platoon.

“That’s not why we acquired Juan Encarnacion,” Tracy said. “He’s a 500 at-bat guy that drives in 90 to 100 runs. You don’t platoon a guy like that.”

A year after batting .270 with 19 homers and a career-high 94 RBIs for the World Series champion Florida Marlins, Encarnacion is batting .237 with five homers, 22 RBIs and a .270 on-base percentage in 39 games.

Grabowski is hitting .258 with four homers, eight RBIs and a .329 on-base percentage in 31 games.