Dodgers, Martinez Aren't All That Swift in Opener : Baseball: Pitcher leaves in the third inning after throwing 87 pitches. The Giants get 17 hits in an 8-1 victory.

Dodgers, Martinez Aren’t All That Swift in Opener : Baseball: Pitcher leaves in the third inning after throwing 87 pitches. The Giants get 17 hits in an 8-1 victory.

By BILL PLASCHKE

April 7, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The afternoon began in spectacular opening-day style Monday, with dozens of pigeons leaving the Dodger Stadium field in a soaring finish to the national anthem.

By the third inning, Ramon Martinez had followed them.

Two innings later, his teammates’ hopeful expressions had also disappeared.

By the time the Dodgers had finally been defeated by the San Francisco Giants, 8-1, only a couple of dozen bored players and few fans remained.

And with good reason.

“We stunk up the field,” pitcher John Candelaria said.

And Candelaria was being kind after the Dodgers had absorbed their worst opening-day loss since their first year in Los Angeles, 1958.

“Of course, knowledgeable people will realize that we have 161 of these games left,” Candelaria said.

It is hard to imagine any of those games even remotely resembling Monday’s sordid affair, which featured 17 hits by the Giants and the disintegration of the Dodgers’ ace starter and a usually dependable middle reliever.

The five Dodger pitchers were supported by seven singles from an offense that showed it still might have trouble with finesse pitchers, in this case the Giants’ Bill Swift.

“It’s sad when you open at home with a tremendous crowd and don’t win,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “To lose it like we lost it, the guys feel awful bad.”

Before 49,018, many of whom felt at least as bad as the players, judging from the sounds of their boos, the Dodgers didn’t lose the game once, but twice:

--Martinez, who needed a good start to silence questions about his soundness, only raised more questions by giving up three runs, seven hits and three walks in 2 2/3 innings.

He was so wild, the first half-inning took 16 minutes and the Giants didn’t even score. By the time Martinez left with two out in the third, the game had already lasted an hour and 17 minutes.

During that time, Martinez threw 87 pitches and had gone to three-ball counts on six of 19 hitters.

“(Martinez) still throws hard, but he doesn’t have the velocity he used to,” the Giants’ Matt Williams said.

Martinez repeated that he is suffering from no problems other than occasional wildness. During spring training, he walked 20 and struck out 12.

“I am fine, I feel 100%, I know I have good control, I know I can throw strikes, and I will do that,” he said. “I am not worried about anything.”

The Dodgers continue to publicly share Martinez’s confidence.

“His velocity in the first inning was fine,” Lasorda said. “I thought he threw the ball good. It was just his command. Next time, he just needs better command. We’ll talk to him and do everything we can to help him.”

The Giants scored two runs in the second on a single by Will Clark and a rare passed ball by Mike Scioscia, then finished Martinez in the third after a run-scoring single by Kirt Manwaring.

Scioscia’s mishap, which occurred with two out and Royce Clayton on third base and the game a scoreless tie, best illustrated the craziness of the game for the Dodgers.

Among the six National League catchers last season who played in 100 or more games, none had fewer passed balls than Scioscia, who had three.

--With the score 3-0 and the Dodgers gaining momentum on good fielding, particularly from new first baseman Kal Daniels, Tim Crews gave up five runs and four hits in the sixth inning.

Like Martinez, Crews had struggled in spring training with a 4.40 earned-run average and a pulled groin muscle.

“That wasn’t my worst game,” Crews said. “But it was one of them.”

Is it any wonder that the standing ovation given Jose Offerman when he scored the first run of the season, on a grounder by Brett Butler in the eighth inning, was one of sarcasm?

Butler didn’t hit the ball out of the infield in four times at bat. Darryl Strawberry hit it out of the infield once in four at-bats. Juan Samuel struck out three times.

The Dodgers’ hardest hit landed in the opening frames of the Giants’ 1992 highlight film. Scioscia drove a ball over the right-field fence in the fifth, but it was snatched back by a leaping Cory Snyder.

The Dodgers’ brightest offensive development occurred when Candelaria, while pitching 2 1/3 innings of shutout relief, batted for the first time since 1987.

He promptly drew a walk, reaching base for the first time since 1984.

But two pitches later, he was picked off first.

“I thought, if (Butler) was going to bunt the ball, they were going to throw (me) out at second base, so I wanted to get a good jump,” Candelaria said. “I got a good jump, all right. I jumped right out of there.”

For the Giants, new leadoff hitter Darren Lewis reached base in each of his six plate appearances, with three singles and three walks. Rookie Clayton made a couple of sparkling plays at shortstop, getting two hits and driving in a run.

“Fortunately, the season isn’t over,” Eric Davis said, forcing a smile.