It’s Another Bad Outing for Belcher : Dodgers: Right-hander feels <i> too </i> good as he yields five runs and seven hits in only four innings. Cubs win, 5-1.

It was another typical afternoon in the eccentric summer of Tim Belcher.

When his shoulder feels dead, he wins. When it feels good, he’s dead. And behind every great pitch lurks a bad one.

It could all be found in the pitching chart after Sunday’s 5-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs before 29,266 at Wrigley Field.

Belcher, whose weak shoulder was injected with cortisone last Sunday, said he felt better than he’s felt in two months. But he has pitched this poorly only three other times this season.

He lasted just four innings, yielding five runs, four of them earned, and seven hits. All the runs scored after two were out, And in each inning, the key hit when the batter had two strikes.

“I guess I haven’t had my good stuff in so long, I forgot how to use it,” Belcher said.

Belcher showed glimpses of overpowering brilliance by striking out All-Star Andre Dawson with two out and the bases loaded in the second inning, even though Dawson was batting .428 lifetime against him.

But two innings later, with the Dodgers trailing, 3-1, and the count 0 and 2, Belcher gave up a two-out home run to Dave Clark. Clark was batting .217 and has hit just one other home run this season. The pitcher? You guessed it.

“He hit the same pitch, in the same park, in the same place,” Belcher said. “That strikeout to Dawson was a big play, but if I strike out Clark it’s an even bigger play.”

Clark’s homer was followed by an error by third baseman Mike Sharperson that led to another run, giving the Cubs a 5-1 lead they held with another curious pitching performance. Steve Wilson, making just his ninth start because he has a 5.70 earned-run average as a starter, held the Dodgers to just six hits with 10 strikeouts in throwing the first complete game of his career.

Although Wilson has struggled against most other teams, he held the Nos. four through nine batters in the Dodger order hitless in 20 at-bats. With Dodgers trying to pull the ball out of the park after scoring 18 runs on 33 hits in the previous three days, Wilson simply changed speeds and watched them miss.

“He was not an overpowering pitcher, so you have to make adjustments against him,” said Sharperson, who had three singles while Kirk Gibson had a double and Kal Daniels doubled and singled.

Anybody who has watched the veteran Dodger offense knows how begrudgingly they make adjustments.

“It was very frustrating to take an 0-for-3 out there,” said catcher Rick Dempsey, who was hitting .333 in his last five starts.

It was the Dodgers’ first loss in four road games since the All-Star break while the struggling Cubs broke a six-game losing streak. The Dodgers finish their season series against the Cubs with a 9-3 record, 5-1 at Wrigley Field.

They have an opportunity to make this an even better trip beginning today when they start a three-game series against the other team at the bottom of the National League East standings, the fifth-place St. Louis Cardinals.

But as the puzzling Belcher has proved this season, sometimes it doesn’t matter who you are playing. Of his seven losses, five have come against teams with sub .500 records. His seven wins include two against East-leading Pittsburgh. He has a 4.02 ERA, more than a run higher than his career ERA of 2.82.

“He might have felt good,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said of Belcher, “but he didn’t pitch like he should.”

Belcher, coming off two consecutive complete-game victories with a tired arm, said he felt too good for his own good.

“Before, when I didn’t feel so good, I knew I had to concentrate on every pitch,” Belcher said. “Today, I felt so strong, I wasn’t real smart. I tried to do some things that I shouldn’t have done.”

With two out in the first inning, and two strikes on Mark Grace, he tried to throw a pitch past him. Grace knocked it to right field for a double. Dawson then bounced a ball up the middle and off second baseman Juan Samuel’s glove for the Cubs’ first run.

“With two strikes on Grace, I should have been out of that inning, no question,” Belcher said.

He made another two-out mistake in the second inning by walking Domingo Ramos before Wilson hit a two-strike fastball to right field for a single. It was Wilson’s third hit of the season, and soon he scored his first run when Ryne Sandberg doubled. Clark had singled home Ramos with the first run of the inning.

Those hits set up Belcher’s confrontation with Dawson, which seemed to lift Belcher from his funk. But two innings later, after getting two strikes on Clark with two out, he once again let his arm overrule his head.

“The past couple of weeks, I haven’t been able to get many 0-2, 1-2 counts, and haven’t been able to put it past anybody,” Belcher said. “But today, the ball was jumping out of my hand a couple of times. . . And I was glad when Dempsey called for the ball inside on Clark. I figured I could get a fastball in there and, if I got it up at all, he would swing right through it.”

Belcher figured wrong, and even Clark seemed surprised by the blow, which left the Cub outfielder shaking his head as he crossed the plate and essentially ended the game.

“It is encouraging to feel good,” Belcher said. “But you know, I’ve still got to pitch good.”

Dodger Notes

Detroit pitcher Steve Searcy threw a shutout for 5 2/3 innings, then gave up two runs without getting another out in an eventual 3-2 win over Texas Sunday. It was Searcy’s first major league win this season, which will interest the Dodgers. They view Searcy, who struck out six and walked four while giving up six hits, as possible compensation in a deal that would send Kirk Gibson to the Tigers . . Hubie Brooks said his bruised tail bone was still sore Sunday, but he could finally sit down, meaning he could finally play. He went hitless in four at-bats, but said he hoped to not leave the lineup because of that injury again.

Eddie Murray had the kind of day Sunday which made him publicly criticize his first half last week. He went hitless in four at-bats while failing to advance runners each time. His most frustrating moment was in the sixth inning, when he grounded into a double play with runners on first and third in the Dodgers last rally of the afternoon. Murray is still hitting .367 in his last 14 games . . . Don Aase will throw off a mound today for the first time since going on the disabled list July 2 with a sore shoulder . . . Pat Perry, on the disabled list since June 11, felt good while throwing for eight minutes off a mound Sunday, and will increase his pitching time this week.

Terry Wells will make his third start today in his tryout for the fifth spot in the Dodger rotation. Look for him to use something other than his fastball, with which he has struck out 13 in 10 innings. He has been working on his curve with pitching coach Ron Perranoski. “I am a power pitcher, everybody knows that, but I know that you need more than just a fastball in this league,” said Wells, 0-1 with a 7.20 ERA. “I’ve got to try and mix it up a little bit.” Wells, recalled from triple-A Albuquerque July 2, also said that he is growing more uncomfortable with the baseball, which he says is constructed different for the major leagues. “It’s a different ball up here, and I’ve had to get used to the way it feels,” he said.