Dodgers Fall Flat Again : Cone and Myers Combine to Pitch Mets to 5-1 Win

This series was billed as a playoff preview, but the New York Mets have turned it into a showcase for their vaunted pitching.

On the heels of Dwight Gooden’s 7-1 victory Monday night, David Cone and Randy Myers took the sting out of nine Dodger hits in pitching the Mets to a 5-1 victory Tuesday night.

Cone (13-3) worked 7 innings for the victory, the Mets’ seventh in eight games against the Dodgers this year. Myers got John Shelby to pop out with two runners on in the eighth, then pitched a hitless ninth to wrap up his 18th save.

The Dodgers, who are 9-3 on a home stand that ends tonight, have scored more than four runs in only one of the seven games since Pedro Guerrero was traded, and they have scored two or fewer runs in four of those games.

They were retired in order only twice by Cone and Myers, but they scored their only run in the second, on two infield hits and a hit batter.

The kindest word on the Dodgers’ behalf came from Cone, who said the Mets’ regular-season dominance of the Dodgers “will mean nothing” if the teams meet in the playoffs.

“It starts all over again then,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any psychological edge at stake in these games.”

In front of a Dodger Stadium crowd of 45,512, the Mets got 11 hits, six off 20-year-old Ramon Martinez, who pitched 4 innings and was charged with the defeat.

It was his first major league decision after he had allowed only two earned runs over 14 innings in his first two starts, against the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies.

This time, struggling with his control and frequently behind in the count, he was chased in a three-run New York fifth.

Brian Holton, Tim Crews and Jesse Orosco kept the Dodgers within two runs until the ninth, when a blown double play behind Alejandro Pena contributed to the final two New York runs.

The Dodgers’ lead over San Francisco and Houston in the National League West remained 4 1/2 games, but their seven-game winning streak, which Gooden ended in the series opener, almost seems a distant memory. The Mets remained 4 1/2 games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates in the East.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda bemoaned his team’s sudden lack of offense and said it doesn’t help when you “turn around and give ‘em runs.”

There was the double play that the Dodgers failed to convert in the ninth. There was the double by Myers in the ninth that center fielder Mike Davis might have been able to catch if he had turned the right way. Then, perhaps, there was the failure of left fielder Kirk Gibson to pursue a series of opposite-field hits in the fifth with his usual aggressiveness.

Martinez, who allowed two walks in the first inning and a hit in the second and another in the third, took a 1-0 lead into the fifth, when the left-handed-hitting Howard Johnson, Dave Magadan and Mookie Wilson lined singles to left, with Wilson driving in the Mets’ first run. A double by Wally Backman gave the Mets a 2-1 lead that became 3-1 when Keith Hernandez greeted Holton with a run-scoring fly to right.

The Mets did not score again until the ninth, which Johnson opened with a single. Pena then got Kevin Elster to hit a ground ball to second baseman Steve Sax, who flipped to shortstop Alfredo Griffin coming across the bag. Umpire Charlie Williams ruled that Griffin came across before he had the ball, and the Dodgers got only the out at first. Two-out singles by Backman and Hernandez scored the Mets’ fourth and fifth runs.

Cone struck out six, including Gibson three times, and walked none as he improved his earned-run average to 2.37. He is second in the league to the Montreal Expos’ Dennis Martinez, who is at 2.36.

The Dodgers had a chance to score in the first inning when they had singles from Mike Scioscia and Gibson with one out, but Cone retired Mike Marshall on a fly to right, then struck out Shelby.

Infield singles by Franklin Stubbs and Sax resulted in a run in the second, but the Dodgers wasted a double by Stubbs in the fourth, a single by Davis in the sixth, another by Tracy Woodson in the seventh and a pair of singles by Scioscia and Davis in the eighth.

Dodger Notes

Mike Marshall left the game after five innings because of lower back stiffness. A Dodger spokesman said it did not appear to be serious. “We can’t afford to lose him,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. Marshall said he would know more about his condition tonight. . . . Fernando Valenzuela will have a Cybex test today to determine whether there has been any improvement in his shoulder strength, and he may begin throwing again during the 11-game trip that begins in Philadelphia Friday, therapist Pat Screnar said. . . . The Dodgers gave John Tudor permission to return to St. Louis to attend to personal matters. He will rejoin the team in Philadelphia. . . . The statistical line wasn’t pretty after Mario Soto made the first start of his rehabilitation assignment, but that isn’t surprising, considering his lack of competitive activity. Soto, pitching for the Bakersfield Dodgers against Modesto, worked 3 innings, making 62 pitches. He allowed 7 hits and 6 runs (3 earned), walked 2 and struck out 2. . . . Orel Hershiser (17-7) faces Bob Ojeda (8-12) in the home-stand finale tonight.