MIAMI — Don Mattingly says he hasn't lost confidence in Carl Crawford.
Never mind the .185 batting average entering Saturday. Or the three hits in his last 30 at-bats. Or even the .212 on-base percentage.
"Carl has struggled but that doesn't mean he's ever out of our plans," Mattingly said Saturday, moments after writing out a lineup that didn't include Crawford. "I'm confident that he's going to get back."
INTERACTIVE: Compare salaries on Dodgers, Marlins
Five hours later, Crawford rewarded that patience, belting a two-run homer in the 11th inning to beat the Miami Marlins, 9-7.
"You hope to just get a base hit," Crawford said. "It felt great, a wonderful feeling."
For the bullpen too, since Crawford's home run rescued a quartet of relievers that let a four-run lead get away. Brian Wilson got the Marlins' rally started by giving up a three-run home run to Marcell Ozuna in the seventh. Then, Chris Perez — asked to get the last three outs because closer Kenley Jansen was given the night off — finished it by walking in the tying run in the ninth to send the Dodgers into extra innings for the eighth time in 31 games.
And while that probably wasn't the way Mattingly would have scripted it, the bullpen implosion may have would up rescuing Crawford as well.
"Hopefully it's something that springboards him," Mattingly said. "It's a big hit. Hits are a lot bigger when they help the team. So when you do something like thathe knows it helps the team and it makes you part of it.
"And that's the problem. When you struggle you don't feel like you're helping anybody and you don't feel like you're a part of what's going on. And something like that can change that."
Crawford agreed.
"When something like that happens, it uplifts you," he said. "It's a big lift for me, somebody looking for anything positive to get through the next day. To come through with a big hit like that and win the game, it's definitely encouraging."
BOX SCORE: Dodgers 9, Marlins 7 (11)
But if Crawford's first home run of the season, into the first row of the second deck, closed out the game, the Dodgers, who had a season-high 16 hits and matched a season high with nine runs, had to rely on a lot of other players to get that far. Five Dodgers had multiple hits, with Matt Kemp getting three and Juan Uribe, Miguel Olivo and Yasiel Puig adding two each. Puig's first cleared a 30-foot-high wall more about 420 feet from home plate for a three-run homer.
Then there's Dee Gordon, who Mattingly had planned to rest during the Marlins series after he played all 21 innings of Thursday's doubleheader in Minnesota. Instead he played both nights, getting eight hits, including a career-high five Saturday.
"This game is funny because three days agohe was looking bad," Mattingly said of Gordon, who also stole three bases to increase his major league-leading total to 19. "Then it was like 'we know he's young enough to handle this. His legs will be as fresh as anybody's.' And then all of sudden he's back."
The same could be said of Crawford.
"That's the thing. This game is so funny," Mattingly said. "Because you're looking like you're going the wrong direction and the next thing you know, a couple of hits in a row, and you're going in the right direction."
kevin.baxter@latimes.com
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