Dodgers lose but not all is lost

The loudest cheers through the first six innings Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium came when highlights of the Lakers’ victory parade played on the scoreboard above the left-field pavilion.

Whether the Dodgers will merit a celebration of their own this fall won’t be known for several months. But the city might want to keep that parade route open just in case.

“That’s the plan,” outfielder and basketball fan Matt Kemp said. “Every team’s plan is to make it to the World Series. We’ll see if we can get there and have one of those big parades like they did.”

The Dodgers hit a speed bump on their way to their parade route Wednesday, wasting numerous scoring chances in a 5-4 loss to the Oakland Athletics. Even with the loss, the Dodgers’ first in four games, their record (43-23) is 2 1/2 games better than any team in baseball. And their division lead of 8 1/2 games is the largest in either league.

That’s still a long way from a World Series, but it’s a good start -- especially since even the losses are coming down to the final out, with the Dodgers bringing the winning run to the plate in each of the last three innings before Casey Blake grounded into a force out to end it.

“You get in situations where you think you’re going to win because you’ve done it so often,” Manager Joe Torre said. “But it wasn’t to be tonight.”

Partly because the Dodgers left 10 men on base, going three for 12 with runners in scoring position.

And while the Dodgers were never out of Wednesday’s game, they never led either, with Adam Kennedy doubling to right on Hiroki Kuroda’s second pitch, then coming around to score on a wild pitch and a groundout.

Oakland added three runs in the third with Rajai Davis and Jack Cust homering off Kuroda (1-3), who admitted the early deficit may have caused him to press.

“Since I allowed the run in the first inning, I may have put a little pressure on myself and overthrew my fastball,” he said through interpreter Kenji Nimura.

Torre agreed.

“He looked like he was trying to throw the ball through a wall,” he said.

Oakland starter Trevor Cahill, one of four rookies in the A’s rotation, was also walking a tightrope early but unlike Kuroda, he managed to keep his balance, wiggling out of a bases-loaded jam in the first and throwing Kemp out at the plate in the second.

The Dodgers didn’t get another baserunner until Juan Pierre doubled with two out in the fifth, ending a string of 11 consecutive batters retired by Cahill. After an error prolonged the inning, Pierre scored on Orlando Hudson’s flare into left-center.

An inning and another unearned run later, Cahill (4-5) was done -- but the Dodgers weren’t, taking advantage of another error to score twice in the seventh on a bases-loaded single by Andre Ethier.

That was all they’d get, though, with Kemp grounding into a double play to end that inning and Pierre doing the same to end the eighth.

“We didn’t take advantage,” Kemp said. “We just came up short. But you’ve got to come out tomorrow and play a little better.”

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com