Dodgers falter at the finish against Padres

Not enough baseball has been played to make sense of what happened to the Dodgers at Petco Park on Thursday.

Were the Dodgers’ shortcomings exposed in their 4-3 loss to the San Diego Padres? Or were they the victims of rare missteps that were bound to occur over the course of a 162-game season?

Manager Joe Torre certainly wasn’t about to declare a state of emergency, stating that everything would be fine if their vaunted lineup started scoring runs.

“I’ll take my chances with those same guys on the mound in the same situation the rest of the year,” Torre said. “But we’re putting a lot of pressure on our pitchers to pitch with a narrow margin.”

That Torre would go out of his way to defend a bullpen that didn’t give up a run in the first three games could be a sign that the relievers remain the Dodgers’ single greatest area of concern heading into a three-game series in Arizona that starts today.

The margin was narrow on Thursday but not that narrow, as the Dodgers had a 3-1 lead and were five outs away from taking three of four games in San Diego.

The meltdown started when Will Ohman, who missed most of spring training because he wasn’t signed until March 30, served up a solo home run to Adrian Gonzalez.

“A two-run ballgame, I’m in to get the lefty out,” Ohman said, shaking his head.

In came Cory Wade, who had pitched the previous night.

Wade gave up a triple to Edgar Gonzalez, followed by a run-scoring single to Nick Hundley. Luis Rodriguez doubled, driving in Hundley from first and completing the Padres’ comeback.

This was, of course, only one inning of one game.

“It happens,” Wade said. “This game’s hard for a reason.”

And, in all fairness to Ohman, most hitters probably wouldn’t have done what Adrian Gonzalez did to his high fastball.

“It surprised me that he got that much of it,” Ohman said.

More surprising than the bullpen’s collapse was the lineup’s inability to score runs.

The Dodgers got on the board only because Padres starter Kevin Correia gave up a single to pitcher Clayton Kershaw in the third inning and walked three batters to force him in.

They didn’t score again until the sixth inning when Matt Kemp broke a 1-1 tie by scorching at a ball that hit Edgar Gonzalez’s glove and bounced into left-center field, driving in Andre Ethier and Russell Martin.

The Dodgers were one for nine with runners in scoring position and six for 38 during the series. They stranded 35 runners in four days, including seven on third base.

The last of them was Orlando Hudson, who led off the ninth inning with a triple.

Behind him in the order were Manny Ramirez, Ethier and Martin. Hudson never scored, as Ramirez grounded out to short and Martin hit into a game-ending double play.

“We had them on the ropes there,” Ethier said. “We just let it slip away.”

Ethier and Torre credited the Padres’ bullpen, particularly closer Heath Bell, who pitched the ninth inning.

“With who we had coming up, you’re not thinking about trying it, you’re thinking about winning it,” Torre said. “They certainly earned it. They had to go through fire to win it. Give Bell a lot of credit there.”

Ramirez made the case that the Padres weren’t as bad as they were perceived to be -- or, at least, that the nature of baseball minimized the talent gap that might exist between the two clubs.

He pointed to how the Netherlands upset the Dominican Republic twice in the World Baseball Classic.

“The same thing happened when the Dominicans played the Netherlands,” he said. “You do the little things, you come to the end, anything can happen.”

--

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com