Homer Has Homey Feel for Daniels : Baseball: Friends, relatives see him give Dodgers 6-4 victory over Braves with two-run shot in the 10th inning. Gott gets first save with club.

For Kal Daniels, baseball games here are personal business.

His family makes the 90-minute drive north from his boyhood home of Warner Robins. They squeeze into several dozen seats behind home plate. They run to the edge of the stands and mob him after the game.

They also chant a special chant so, when Daniels is batting, he will know it is them.

Daniels will not reveal the chant, but it might have helped inspire him in Saturday’s 6-4, 10-inning Dodger victory over the Atlanta Braves.

On a one-strike slider from relief pitcher Marty Clary with two out in the 10th, Daniels hit a two-run home run to right field that caused a ripple of hugs among both his teammates and relatives.

The Dodgers, who earlier had wasted a two-run lead, were thrilled because they moved back to within seven games of first-place Cincinnati in the National League West.

Daniels’ family was thrilled because on that same spot during Friday’s loss, they watched him take a called third strike to end the game.

“This team depends on me, everybody knows I’m going to keep going up there and take my hacks, no matter what,” Daniels said with a smile. “Last night, the Braves got me. Tonight, I got them. I guess that makes us even.”

Hubie Brooks began the Dodgers’ 10th inning against Clary by pinch-hitting for pitcher Jay Howell even though Brooks’ right shoulder was so sore, he was a late scratch from the starting lineup.

“I said, ‘Hell, I’l give it a try,” Brooks said. “I figured I might get lucky.”

And he did, as he fell behind 1-and-2 before Clary hit him in the hip with a fastball to give him first base. Brooks moved to second when Stan Javier beat out a sacrifice bunt for a single, and moved to third on Kirk Gibson’s double-play grounder.

That set up Daniels’ 17th home run of the season and gave him 56 runs batted in, eight short of his previous career high.

Said Clary (1-10): “I threw him a changeup on the first pitch, so I thought he would be holding back on the second pitch--but he surprised me and caught it out in front.”

The homer left the game to Dodger relief pitcher Jim Gott, whose last save had come Sept. 27, 1988, when he was pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the St. Louis Cardinals. Because of an elbow operation the next spring, Gott appeared in only one game for Pittsburgh in 1989, and only 26 games for the Dodgers before Saturday.

“This is unbelievable, it has been such a long, hard road,” Gott said. “Too many things for ballplayers come too easy . . . this is so good that I was able to work so hard and learn so much, and then get this tonight.”

The winning pitcher was Howell, who threw seven balls during one torturous nine-pitch stretch and walked two runners in the ninth. He then got Jeff Treadway to ground out to end the ninth.

Howell’s cap was checked for illegal substances by first-base umpire Doug Harvey.

“He asked for my cap, I said fine,” Howell said, smiling. “I guess the Braves asked him to do it.”

The only thing Harvey found was sweat.

The Dodgers scored their four runs in the first four innings against starter Mark Grant in varied fashion. They got a two-run homer by Kirk Gibson, his fourth during a seven-game hitting streak, and Lenny Harris stole home on a delayed double steal. It was the first steal of home by a Dodger since Steve Sax in 1984 against the Chicago Cubs.

The only Dodger blemish was starter Tim Belcher, who continued his season-long inconsistency by giving up four runs in six innings.

Belcher had a chance to finish off the Braves after the Dodgers took a 4-2 lead in the fourth inning, but he walked Treadway and gave up a two-run homer by Dave Justice in the fifth. It was Justice’s sixth homer in six games since replacing Dale Murphy as the Braves right fielder, while Belcher’s earned-run average rose to 3.90.

Dodger Notes

Hubie Brooks suffered a bruised right shoulder during a head-first slide into second base in the eighth inning Friday. He was scratched from the lineup after a painful batting practice but said that he should be able to return within a day or two. “It’s nothing serious, just a bruise,” Brooks said. Brooks entered Saturday with an eight-game hitting streak, during which he is hitting .452 with five runs batted in. His .268 average is his highest since April 18.

Dave Walsh, recalled from triple-A Albuquerque, dressed in a major league clubhouse for only the second time in his career, even though he has been in professional baseball eight years with Toronto and the Dodgers. Walsh, a left-hander, had never been recalled to the major leagues, and never even been invited to a major league spring training camp. “I’m sure they think they are taking a chance on me, but that’s all I want is a chance,” said Walsh, who has undergone knee surgery three times, the latest in 1987. After that that season, he joined the Dodgers as a minor league free agent, and finally found success this year, going 6-0 for Albuquerque with a 2.61 ERA and 12 saves in 47 appearances. He had 66 strikeouts in 62 innings.