Garvey's Two Homers Lead L.A., 9-5

The Los Angeles Dodgers have never made a habit of playing exciting baseball against anybody except the San Francisco Giants, and if the playoff for the National League pennant had been between those two teams, people might still be talking about the opening game.

But, boredom fans, the Philadelphia Phillies are the Dodgers' opponents this year in the National League playoffs, and they did their best to sit back and let Los Angeles take the opening game of the best of five series last night in Philadelphia, 9-5.

Though not exciting, the Dodgers displayed some impressive offense, and, led by Steve Garvey's two homerun, four-RBI effort, got some strong long relief work by rookie Bob Welch to dispatch the Phils rather easily.

Tater City

Down 1-0 in the second after Greg Luzinski's triple was turned into the game's first run with a Mike Schmidt sacrifice fly, Los Angeles popped for four runs in the top half of the third to lead the contest for keeps. Garvey's first blast, a three-run round-tripper down the left-field line, was the big blow in that frame.

Dave Lopes proved the claims behind his "deceptive" power when the L.A. second baseman cracked a two-run homer to deep center field in the fourth to up the margin to five, and Ron Cey made it 7-1 the following inning when his base hit to right scored Garvey after the Golden Boy had tripled.

The Phillies got reasonably serious in their half of the fifth, knocking out L.A. starter Burt Hooton and stringing together five singles for three runs and a 7-4 ball game. Steve Yeager, the Dodger catcher, then answered back in the sixth when he took Philadelphia reliever Rawly Eastwick deep for the Dodgers eighth tally.

Welch Juices

Welch, the classy flame-thrower who almost single-handedly put Los Angeles back in the pennant race in the heat of the summer, chucked his aspiring balls for 3 2/3 innings of no-hit ball until pinch-hitter Jerry Martin touched him for the Phils' only four-bagger in the last half of the ninth.

Meanwhile, Garvey gave the Dodgers their fourth homer, ninth run, and seventh extra-base hit with his final moonshot of the evening in the top of the ninth.

The need for four different Philadelphia pitchers and the power with which the Dodgers greeted each one seemed to keynote this contest, and unfortunately for the Phils, may keynote the entire series if they cannot come up with a mound humbler of some sort. Retread Dick Rutheven gets his chance against L.A. lefty Tommy John when the series resume in Philly tomorrow.