Dodgers Remain Winless at Home : Baseball: Padres take advantage of fielding mistakes to complete sweep, 5-3.

On a day when Brett Butler and Darryl Strawberry had their first hits at home, and when Juan Samuel gave the team its first home run of the season, few left Dodger Stadium doubting that these Dodgers will hit.

But can they hit enough to overcome what they can’t catch?

Sunday, the Dodgers committed four errors and made two other fielding mistakes in losing a third consecutive game to the San Diego Padres, 5-3, before 47,698.

The Dodgers hadn’t been swept in a three-game, season-opening series at home in 21 years, not since the Cincinnati Reds swept them in 1970.

They can only hope it will be another 21 years before they make such poor use of their gloves again.

After taking a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Butler’s single and Samuel’s homer, the Dodgers lost that lead for hard-luck pitcher Mike Morgan with a variety of incidents that could only happen to, well, Morgan.

“You know, there’s a reason I have a career losing record,” said Morgan afterward, shaking his head as he fell to 0-1 this season and 53-95 overall. “It seems like my whole career has been like this.”

Here is what he means:

--With two out and bases loaded in the second inning, first baseman Stan Javier dropped a throw from shortstop Alfredo Griffin, allowing a run to score.

--With the Dodgers leading, 2-1, in the seventh inning, Javier mishandled a grounder by Garry Templeton to give him first base to start the inning.

“A long, long day,” Javier said. “Every ball found me.”

After Shawn Abner forced Templeton at second with a bad bunt, Abner moved to third when Morgan threw wildly on a pickoff attempt.

One out later, Morgan thought he was out of the inning on a fly ball to left field by Bip Roberts. But Kal Daniels was playing Roberts shallow, and needed to furiously backpedal to reach the ball, which hit his outstretched glove and bounced out for a run-scoring double.

Tony Fernandez singled in another run and Morgan was gone.

--With the Dodgers trailing just 3-2, Mike Sharperson threw wild from third base on a grounder by Fred McGriff to start the eighth inning.

McGriff went to second base, from where he scored moments later on a home run by Benito Santiago that curled from foul to fair territory and dropped into the right-field seats just behind Strawberry.

“I thought it was foul until the last minute,” said Strawberry, whose first-inning, bad-hop single to right field was his only hit of the series. His average is now .158.

The Dodgers have eight errors in five games, and the Padres equaled their best start after six games in franchise history with a 5-1 record.

“The pressure is not on us this time, it’s on the other guys,” Tony Gwynn said, referring to the highly paid Dodgers.

If the pressure is on anybody, it is the Dodger management, which released backup first baseman Mickey Hatcher this spring and has been missing him ever since Eddie Murray left the starting lineup with a sore hip three games ago.

Murray underwent a magnetic resonance imaging test and a bone scan with Dr. Robert Watkins Sunday morning. He was walking better when he came to the park and, while he decided he could not start, he was available to pinch-hit.

The results of the exams will be known today, but Murray was packing his bags for San Francisco Sunday and will probably attempt to start again tonight against the Giants in Candlestick Park.

“It’s pretty much like, I don’t know if I can play until I get to the park,” Murray said Sunday. “It will feel good walking, then I will run and it will hurt again.”

Dodger trainer Bill Buhler said Watkins did not expect to find any abnormality in the tests. “He just wanted to eliminate some things,” Buhler said. “He didn’t think anything would show up.”

Sometimes Morgan wishes he had not shown up. After giving up no earned runs in 6 2/3 innings, he was as frustrated after his first start of this season as he was after his last appearance last season.

“I pitch good games I lose, I pitch bad games I lose, I pitch shutouts and I get no decision,” said Morgan. “There’s times I feel there’s not much more I can really do.”

Morgan said the big hit was the fly ball by Roberts that was dropped by Daniels.

“Hey, I got a fly ball with two out . . . and unfortunately, it turned out to be a double,” he said.

Daniels said that if he made the catch, it would have been one for the highlight films.

“I had to go back a long way for it because we had played him shallow all series and he really surprised us,” Daniels said. “That’s a great catch if I make it.”

The game at least ended with a bright spot for the Dodgers when Kevin Gross, one day after giving up five runs in 1 1/3 innings in his Dodger debut as a starter, pitched one perfect inning of relief.

DODGER ATTENDANCE Sunday: 47,698

1990 (3 dates): 145,167

1989 (3 dates): 114,220

Increase: 30,947

Average: 48,389