LOS ANGELES - Stranded on an island in the South Pacific in the movie "Castaway," Tom Hanks always kept his companion, Wilson - a volleyball that washed ashore with him - close by his side. Dodgers manager Grady Little says he has no intention of letting go of his Wilson, either. Wilson Betemit's batting average may be plumbing the depths - he's batting .
132 - but Little said he'll continue to pencil him in at third base. "I've still got confidence in the kid, we do as an organization," said Little, who worked with the 25-year-old switch-hitter in the batting cages Tuesday. "We saw what he did for us last year when he joined our club.
Some people have bad days. Some people have bad weeks. This guy had a bad month.
" Betemit singled sharply to left field in his first at-bat Wednesday, his first hit in 12right-handed at-bats this season. He struck out the next twotimes up, but after getting in a 0-2 hole, he coaxed a two-out walk in the eighth against Arizona reliever Doug Slaten. Andre Ethier followed with an RBI single, which proved to be the difference.
The base hit was Betemit's seventh hit of the season - or two more than Ethier had in the three-game series. Little has been able
Thanks to a team-leading 14walks, his on-base percentage is .310, no worse than that of the Dodgers' table setters, Rafael Furcal and Juan Pierre. "When you get to a point like Wilson's at right now, you try just about everything to get him going," Little said.
"Mechanical, psychological, whatever it takes you try to get something going differently than the way it's going is not working. You do a lot of physical adjustments, then you get to a certain point and the adjustments got to be made from the neck up. He's close to that point right now.
" Little spoke with Ethier after his sliding attempt at catching Byrnes' eighth-inning liner Tuesday night resulted in a triple when the ball got past him and rolled to the wall. Byrnes eventually scored the tying run on a sacrifice fly before the Dodgers won it in the ninth. Little said he didn't mind the aggressiveness, but told Ethier "to use a little common sense.
" With a 1-0 lead and the Dodgers' strong bullpen, the more prudent approach would have been to play the ball on a hop and hold Byrnes to a single. Little said he plans to take advantage of today's travel day to give Jeff Kent and Luis Gonzalez, 39-year-olds who had started all but one of the Dodgers' first 27 games, back-to-back days off. Gonzalez was given Wednesday off against Arizona left-hander Doug Davis, against whom he was batting .
182 over his career.
News RSS