Rookie Has the Vision to Succeed

By Bill Plaschke

Sept. 29, 2006 12 AM PT

DENVER — Crazy doesn’t cut it. Absurd is too abstract.

There is only one way to describe the weirdness that flaked on Coors Field Thursday afternoon, decorating the Dodgers’ championship hopes like so much multicolored confetti.

It was Loney Tunes.

It was a kid with eight RBIs in 45 games driving in nine runs in what seemed like 45 minutes.

It was a kid who has never hit more than 11 homers in any professional season hitting two in a span of five innings.

It was a kid making his first start in 25 days, having an afternoon to last a lifetime.

“We’ve had a lot of magic over these last couple of weeks,” James Loney said afterward, staring wide-eyed at the reporters surrounding him. “Sitting on the bench and watching it, I wanted to be part of it.”

For one game, he was that magic.

For four sweet swings, the 22-year-old rookie first baseman who has been dragged through September by this veteran-led team actually carried it.

You say altitude, the Dodgers say attitude, and they hung on to another unlikely hero in taking a 19-11 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

A three-game sweep finished by the sorcerer’s apprentice.

“A lot of young guys on this team have been through tough times on the bench, but now it’s starting to pay off,” fellow rookie Andre Ethier said.

“Like they said, it’s going to take 25 of us.”

With three games in San Francisco still standing between this weary bunch and their second playoff appearance in 10 years, the Dodgers are going to continue to need these little fresh-faced miracles wherever they can find them.

“Every time I went to the plate, the guys on the bench kept saying, ‘Get us some more,’ ” Loney said. “Then when I came back in, they were like, ‘Wow! You did get us some more.’ ”

Loney tied the Dodgers’ franchise record for RBIs in a game held by Gil Hodges.

“He played infield, right?” asked Loney of the longtime first baseman.

Loney had the most RBIs by a major league rookie in 31 years, since Fred Lynn drove in 10 for the Boston Red Sox in 1975.

“I mean, wow!” said teammate Russell Martin.

And Loney surely set a record for RBIs by any baseball player with perpetually bloodshot eyes.

“Yeah, I know, it looks kind of weird,” Loney said.

Last fall, as one of baseball’s hip new generation, Loney accepted Nike’s offer of colored contact lenses that act as sunglasses.

The problem is, they’re red. So, during afternoon games, his stare looks as if it belongs to a vampire, a robot, or somebody with a heck of a hangover.

“Everybody on the team thinks its strange, but it works,” he said.

Whatever, dude.

“He is the perfect rookie,” Manager Grady Little said. “He keeps his mouth shut, he stays out of our way, and he’s ready when we call him.”

Little called on him after Wednesday night’s game, when it was apparent that Nomar Garciaparra’s strained side muscle needed a rest.

Loney heard the news, returned to the team hotel, lay down, closed his eyes, and saw what he always sees on nights before he starts.

“I visualize me going up the plate and getting a big hit,” he said.

What happened Thursday may change that routine.

“Maybe I need to start visualizing guys on base when I get those hits,” he said.

Second inning, the Rockies leading 3-0 against sore-backed Brad Penny, the Dodgers load the bases with one out and Loney takes Ball 1, then ... boom!

Well, OK, it wasn’t exactly boom! Loney’s hits are more like, thwack!

The line drive into the left-field stands seemed to stun even him as he rounded the bases, shaking his head.

“It was my first grand slam as a pro,” he said. “Wait, let me think. No, that’s right, my first.”

An inning later, his double down the right-field line scored two more runs, helping the Dodgers pad their lead. Two innings later, he singled up the middle, driving in the tying run.

Then, finally, in the sixth inning, his two-run homer to right field helped clinch it.

“My first two-homer game since before high school,” he said. “And I’m sure of that.”

The rap against Loney, of course, is that he is a first baseman without power.

In fact, the Dodgers are so concerned about Loney’s suspect strength that they probably will try to re-sign Garciaparra to play first base, despite his battles with injuries.

But they’ve always had hope, and General Manager Ned Colletti recently refused the Boston Red Sox’s request for Loney in a proposed deal for David Wells.

In the light air Thursday, in more ways than one, hope floated.

Afterward, as sometimes happens with rookies, the clubhouse guys carried away Loney’s duffel bag before he had finished packing it.

“You want me to get you another bag for the rest of your stuff?” asked a clubhouse attendant.

“Yes, please,” said Loney, who then paused and glanced around a room full of guys suddenly looking at him different, looking at him as a Dodger, born in the best of times, born in a pennant race.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “On second thought, I’ll just carry everything myself.”

Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.