Another Lost Nomo Cause

By Bill Shaikin

June 20, 2004 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

The Dodgers lost Saturday, and not only on the scoreboard. Hideo Nomo lost again, becoming the first eight-game loser in the National League.

And Brad Halsey won, complicating matters for the Dodgers in their quest to acquire the starter that could replace Nomo in the rotation.

In his major league debut, Halsey stopped the Dodgers on two runs over 5 2/3 innings, propelling the New York Yankees to a 6-2 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 54,876 at Dodger Stadium. The Yankees rendered the crowd lethargic by jumping on Nomo for four runs in the first inning, three on a home run by Hideki Matsui.

The Yankees, short on prospects and desperate to acquire a veteran starter, now assuredly will hype Halsey in the hope of trading him. That’s the game plan that worked for the Yankees last year -- pitcher Brandon Claussen won his major league debut last June, beating the New York Mets, and within weeks he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for third baseman Aaron Boone.

“That thought obviously runs through players’ heads,” Halsey said. “But it doesn’t do you any good to worry about it. You’ve got to pitch no matter where you’re at.”

The Yankees, staggering with injuries to their rotation, have started Halsey and Dodger castoff Tanyon Sturtze in two of their last four games. If the Yankees can include Halsey in a trade for a pitcher the Dodgers might want -- Seattle’s Freddy Garcia, for instance -- Saturday will be one of the darker days in the Dodger season.

In six at-bats against Halsey with men in scoring position, the Dodgers went hitless.

Halsey, 23, rocketed through the Yankee system. The Yankees selected him in the eighth round of the 2002 draft, and he arrived at Dodger Stadium after 10 starts in rookie ball, 13 at Class A, 15 at double A and 13 at triple A. He comes from the school of crafty left-handers, with a below-average fastball in the 86- to 88-mph range complemented by an assortment of off-speed pitches.

“He’s all right,” Dodger shortstop Cesar Izturis said. “He got four runs in the first inning, and he went out there and made some good pitches.”

Yankee relievers Paul Quantrill, Tom Gordon and Mariano Rivera preserved the victory.

The afternoon had a bit of history. Matsui and Nomo, heroes from Japan, never had faced each other, in their homeland or in the major leagues.

After Matsui homered off Nomo in the first inning, Nomo homered off Halsey in the fifth.

Never before had two Japanese-born players homered in the same major league game, and never before had one Japanese-born player homered off another.

Although Nomo put the Dodgers in a 4-0 hole, the Dodgers took solace in how he responded. He shut out the Yankees over the next six innings, retiring 13 consecutive batters at one point.

For the first time this season, Nomo pitched seven innings, giving up four hits. The most significant hit, the Matsui homer, came on a split-finger that appeared to catch him off-balance, with the ball sneaking inside the right-field foul pole.

“If he hits it three feet to the left, it’s an out,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “He hooked the heck out of it.”

Nomo’s earned-run average, at 7.26, remains higher than any NL starter except Ryan Vogelsong of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Tracy called Saturday’s game “his best outing of the year,” but Nomo took little consolation from those words.

“I don’t really think about it too much,” he said through an interpreter. “I would like to come off the mound with our team ahead.”