Yet Another Measure of Piazza’s Success

The Dodgers should add another category to Mike Piazza’s statistics--home run distance.

Piazza drilled a 1-0 pitch from Cub starter Steve Trachsel 440 feet to the base of the back wall of the Dodger bullpen in the fourth inning for his sixth home run of the season as the Dodgers won for the fifth time in six games, 5-2, Sunday before 41,772 at Dodger Stadium.

“I hit that pretty well,” Piazza said modestly. “But I’ll take anything that clears the fence. I don’t care if it scrapes the back of the wall, they all count the same.”

Does Piazza think he can hit one out of Dodger Stadium?

“Some days you come out here and the ball carries pretty well and other days it’s like hitting it through peanut butter,” he said. “I guess under the right conditions it’s possible if you get a pitch out over the plate and extend on it and the wind is blowing out.”

Piazza’s career-high 36 home runs last season averaged 392 feet, including a 446-foot shot into the second deck of San Diego’s Jack Murphy Stadium off Tim Worrell. His longest home run is a 477-foot shot on June 6, 1994, at Florida.

“You look at Mike and you look at the guys you thought were home-run hitters when I played and this guy just goes beyond that,” Dodger Manager Bill Russell said. “He’s so strong and powerful that it doesn’t take much for him to hit a ball that far. He hits balls to right-center that left-handers can’t hit that far.”

The Dodgers are waiting for him to hit one out of the stadium.

“I didn’t bring my car today so I was hoping it would go,” closer Todd Worrell said. “I keep waiting for him to hit one over that tin roof [over the right field bleachers].”

Piazza extended his hitting streak to eight games and had six hits in 12 at-bats with two home runs and four RBIs in the three-game series with the Cubs.

Piazza also made a home-plate stand in the seventh inning when he tagged out Brian McRae, who collided with him trying to steal home on a three-ball count with two out and the Cubs down by three runs.

“I don’t think a lot of hitters would want to run into him, he’s pretty intimidating back there,” said Dodger reliever Tom Candiotti, who was pitching at the time. “That’s got to be a tough play for a catcher because you’re not used to doing it and you’ve got to lean forward and get out there. If the pitch is anywhere but down and in there’s no way you can really make that play.”

Although it looked frightening, Piazza suffered only a cut on his right thumb and remained in the game.

“When I saw him holding his hand the first thing you think of is that he’s going to be out a month,” Russell said. “It was a scary thing because a freak thing like that could be really damaging to your team.”

Said Piazza: “I caught the spike on the thumb and it put a little gash in it. I couldn’t feel it for a couple minutes. I ran up the tunnel real quick and had them look at it and it felt fine so I went on and hit. It was pretty painful but once I started moving around I knew it wasn’t broken.”

The Dodger hot streak has coincided with Piazza’s hitting streak in which he is batting .394 with four home runs and nine RBIs.

The Dodgers, who had 15 extra-base hits in the series against the Cubs, had a home run, a triple and two doubles and scored five runs in the first five innings off Trachsel.

Third baseman Todd Zeile, who had only 10 hits and six RBIs in his first 21 games, had two hits, drove in a run and scored twice.

Zeile is batting .429 with eight RBIs in his last six games and has raised his batting average to a season-high .202.

Chan Ho Park (2-1), who won his first major league game against the Cubs last season, gave up five hits, including a home run, and two runs in 6 2/3 innings.

Park who threw 29 pitches in working his way out of a bases loaded jam in the first inning, threw a career-high 119 pitches.

“I was worried before the game because I was tired, but after the first inning things went relatively well so I was satisfied,” Park said.

* RANDY HARVEY: Dodgers even got some breaks on the basepath as they kept on winning. C2