A Loss on Wild Side, 5-1 : Dodgers: Hershiser gives up first four walks of the season and all score in Cardinals’ victory.

Perhaps the best way to describe Orel Hershiser’s Wednesday night, and his season thus far, is this: The man is now stopping scoreless inning streaks.

Hershiser followed back-to-back Dodger shutouts Wednesday with a game that made his followers want to shut their eyes. He gave up six hits to the St. Louis Cardinals in 6 1/3 innings in a 5-1 Dodger loss in front of 32,584 at Dodger Stadium.

A Ramon Martinez or Mike Morgan, he wasn’t. Where those two starters gave the Dodgers a two-game win streak with shutouts, Hershiser handed the Dodgers a loss in several unusual ways.

He walked four batters, his first walks of the year, and watched all of them score. He was crossed up with catcher Mike Scioscia on a passed ball that allowed another run to score. He allowed two RBIs by the Cardinal pitcher, Bryn Smith.

In all, it wasn’t a pleasant experience, nor has it been a pleasant season, for the former Cy Young winner. After a good opening day performance against San Diego, Hershiser has allowed 11 runs in his last 19 1/3 innings for a 5.12 ERA. Overall, he is 1-1 with a 4.26 ERA.

Of course, if he wanted claim lack of run support last night, he could. Like last year, when the Dodgers scored less than two runs in 12 of his 15 defeats, the bats were silent, managing just seven singles off Cardinal starter Smith and reliever Ken Dayley.

But in this loss, Hershiser had the biggest hand.

In the fifth inning of a scoreless game, he started things by walking rookie Todd Zeile. Jose Oquendo singled to right, moving Zeile to third. From there, all it took was a double-play grounder by Smith to score a run.

Two innings later, things got positively ugly. With one out in the seventh, Hershiser walked Tom Brunansky, batting .205 at the time. He then allowed a single to Zeile.

He loaded the bases on another walk, this time to Oquendo. The Dodgers had entered the game with the fewest walks in the National League, averaging 1.8 per game.

Pitcher Smith then knocked in a run with a single. After Scioscia’s passed ball scored another run, Hershiser walked Coleman to load the bases, and then was replaced by reliever John Wetteland. He allowed RBI singles by Ozzie Smith and Willie McGee to complete the Cardinals’ scoring.

The Dodger offense, meanwhile, couldn’t touch Smith, which should not be surprising. He was making just his fourth start as a Cardinal, after he signed this winter as a free agent, but he remembered the Dodgers from last season at Montreal, when he held them to six runs in four games, going 1-0 with a 2.38 ERA against them.

The only Dodger run was unearned, coming in the eighth inning. Willie Randolph reached first on shortstop Ozzie Smith’s first error of the season, a low throw to first base. Randolph went to second on a Kal Daniels single, moved to third when right fielder Brunansky overran the ball, and scored on Eddie Murray’s grounder.

The Dodgers had their chances against Smith early, but they were few, and produced no results.

With one out in the first, Randolph singled to left, extending his hitting streak to four games. Randolph, one of six Dodgers to appear in every game this season, has hit in 13 of those 16 games.

But Daniels flied to left and Murray grounded to first to end the inning.

Hubie Brooks, another Dodger who had played in every game, started the second inning with a single to center. That extended his hitting streak to nine games. But Lenny Harris sent him to the dugout with a double-play grounder.

Beginning with Harris’ grounder, Smith retired seven Dodgers in a row before walking Murray with two out in the fourth. It was Murray’s 10th walk of the season, putting him on a pace to surpass last season’s team-leading 87 walks. Even with better hitters behind him this year, the National League pitchers still are not trusting Murray with good pitches.

Brooks followed Murray with another single. But Harris flied out to center to end any threat.

Scioscia began the fifth with a single to right. But after Griffin’s grounder forced Scioscia at second, and Hershiser bunted Griffin to second, Samuel struck out to end the inning. Samuel, who struck out again in the eighth inning and now has 20 strikeouts, had not struck out in the two previous games, a season high.

The Dodgers had only three hits the rest of the game.

Dodger Notes

It appears the Dodgers are on the verge of scheduling at least arthroscopic surgery on third baseman Jeff Hamilton’s shoulder. Hamilton has neither thrown nor hit since going on the disabled list last Saturday, and his shoulder is hurting more than ever, not just in the front, where the rotator cuff is torn, but also in the back. . . . Jim Gott pitched without pain again Wednesday in a 20-minute simulated game. He is still lacking arm strength, though, and will pitch another simulated game here Friday or Saturday before going to Class-A Bakersfield for a couple of rehabilitation starts. . . . Jay Howell has already begun rehabilitation on his surgically repaired left knee. He walked into the Dodger clubhouse late Wednesday afternoon just as he said he walked out of the hospital following Tuesday’s arthroscopic surgery to repair a torn cartilage.

Pedro Guerrero, more than a year removed from his days as a Dodger hero, returned to Dodger Stadium with the Cardinals ready to forget about the past. “It was hard on me, but I don’t think about it anymore,” said Guerrero about the August 1988 trade that sent him to St. Louis for pitcher John Tudor, who is back with the Cardinals.