One, Two, Three Strikeouts--and Dodgers Are Out

Ricky Bottalico of the Philadelphia Phillies showed the Dodgers why he’s the National League’s best relief pitcher.

After walking leadoff hitter Chad Fonville and hitting Roger Cedeno on the left hand to open the ninth inning, Bottalico struck out Mike Piazza, Eric Karros and Raul Mondesi as the Phillies ended the Dodgers’ five-game winning streak, 5-4, Sunday before 38,178 at Dodger Stadium.

“He made some good pitches,” Karros said of Bottalico. “He did his job. We had an opportunity. We had the guys up there that we wanted, but Bottalico was better today.”

Bottalico, the league leader with 12 saves in 12 opportunities, said he knew he had to pitch carefully to Piazza, who had two singles in five at-bats, and Karros, whose two-run homer in the sixth gave the Dodgers a 3-3 tie.

“I had a good idea what I wanted to do with those guys,” Bottalico said. “Those are guys that I faced last year a lot and they’re guys I’m going to face a lot. With Piazza I tried to stay away from a mistake with him, because if you make a mistake he’s shown that he’s going to hit it out of the park, and Karros has done the same. Mondesi is a big swinger too, and I had to watch out.”

After hanging a slider that Karros nearly hit into the left-field box seats, Bottalico settled down.

“The slider isn’t a pitch to get beat on, especially when it’s my third best pitch,” Bottalico said. “I turned around and started going after them with how I knew I could pitch and things fell back into place. I wasn’t wild.”

Said Piazza: “He had good stuff. I see why he’s got 12 saves.”

Dodger pitcher Ramon Martinez, making his second start since sitting out five weeks because of a pulled groin, trailed, 3-0, after throwing only six pitches in the first inning.

Mickey Morandini got a leadoff single and Jim Eisenreich, who went four-for-five and singled in the game-winning run off reliever Scott Radinsky with two outs in the ninth, bounced a double over the center-field wall. Dodger center fielder Roger Cedeno’s inexperience showed as he badly misjudged the ball and got a late start.

“It’s hard to see in the daytime,” Cedeno said. “When you can’t see the ball, there’s nothing you can do.”

Benito Santiago belted Martinez’s first pitch off the top of the right-field wall for a three-run homer. Mondesi might have caught the ball, but he never jumped.

“When I try to jump, the wall was right there, and the wind blew it out a little bit,” Mondesi said.

Although Martinez, whose eight-game winning streak ended, was down 3-0 after facing only three batters, he could just as easily have gotten three outs.

“Chad [Fonville] almost caught [Morandini’s single],” Martinez said. “Cedeno didn’t see the ball very well, and Mondy almost got Santiago’s fly ball. They were all hit hard, but I was OK.”

Martinez gave up four runs on seven hits before he was replaced by Mark Guthrie with one out in the seventh inning after walking leadoff hitter Kevin Stocker and a sacrifice by pinch-hitter Mike Benjamin.

Guthrie gave up a run-scoring double to Morandini that just eluded a leaping Mike Blowers at third to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead.

With the Dodgers trailing by a run, left fielder Todd Hollandsworth, who had grounded into a double play with the bases loaded in the second inning and struck out with the tying run on base to end the fourth, singled in Delino DeShields, who had led off the eighth inning with a double.