Dodgers Show Reds Who’s Boss : Baseball: Martinez gets eighth victory as L.A. prevails, 11-3, and leaves Cincinnati yearning for revenge.

Nothing in baseball has ever been decided on a night in May. But when the Dodgers and the Cincinnati Reds met Friday for the first time this season, at least one thing in a muddied National League West was made clear.

There is no question who is chasing whom.

The first-place Dodgers needed about 10 minutes to run away from the Reds, then just kept heaping on the pressure en route to an 11-3 victory before 44,509 at Riverfront Stadium.

“The kinds of things we did tonight hopefully sent a message to everybody,” said third base coach Joe Amalfitano, who jumped and waved while carrying out a daring game plan that helped the Dodgers score their most runs this season.

“When you play us,” Amalfitano said, “you have to be on your toes.”

The Reds looked flat.

Four of the Dodgers’ first seven batters had hits against rattled rookie pitcher Chris Hammond, a left-hander.

The uprising was capped by a two-run single by Jeff Hamilton, who doubled his RBI total for the month.

And that was just the beginning.

Three hours later, every Dodger in the starting lineup except the pitcher had at least one hit, Ramon Martinez had won his National League-leading eighth game, and the Dodgers had scored in enough crazy ways to make the defending world champion Reds look like challengers.

“It is way to early to make any judgments,” Brett Butler said. “But it was a pretty nice way to start.”

The Reds, who fell 2 1/2 games behind the Dodgers, didn’t see it that way, probably because they saw the following:

--The Dodgers scored on a sacrifice fly . . . to the shortstop.

--They scored on a forced balk.

--They scored two runs within seconds of each other when Darryl Strawberry nearly ran down Juan Samuel while both raced home on a double by Eddie Murray.

--They scored after stealing a base in the eighth inning even though they led 8-3.

That final insult was too much for some Reds to handle, even though Lenny Harris wasn’t stealing, but just completing a failed hit-and-run with Butler batting. Because Butler had attempted a bunt before Harris ran, some thought the Dodgers were rubbing it in.

“That shows us a total lack of respect,” said Mariano Duncan, a former Dodger. “When you do something like that, you could cause an injury. I said it to Butler tonight, and I will say it to (Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda) tomorrow.”

Duncan, who has openly criticized Lasorda even when Duncan played with the Dodgers, added, “We got beat badly tonight, but tomorrow maybe we should score 14 runs and then steal bases.”

Said Lasorda: “The Reds are a tough ballclub. We needed all of those runs.”

Lasorda was proven right in the seventh inning, when the Reds made it 8-3 on a run-scoring single by Billy Hatcher and placed runners on first and second.

In came relief pitcher John Candelaria, who had stranded his previous 12 inherited runners. Moments later he stranded two more, but only because Harris made a diving stop on a grounder down the third-base line by Hal Morris.

“Lenny doesn’t make that play, the score is 8-5,” Lasorda said. “We can never have enough runs against these guys.”

Backed by such inspiration, Martinez essentially only needed to show up, which he did by allowing three run and eight hits in 6 2/3 innings. He has won a career-high seven consecutive games while improving his record to 8-1.

It was the first time he has allowed more than two runs during his streak, and his earned-run average rose from 1.85 to 2.08. But as even Martinez realized, he didn’t need to be that good.

“Tonight I don’t have best curve ball or changeup, but tonight they make it easy for me,” Martinez said.

The best part for Martinez was that he had a great seat to some plays that that Dodgers will be smiling about for days.

How about that weird sacrifice fly? It occured in that controversial eighth inning, after Butler had walked, taken second on Ted Power’s run-scoring balk, and moved to third on an infield hit.

Eddie Murray lofted a fly ball to the outer edge of the infield. Duncan, playing shortstop, backpedaled and caught it. Butler tagged and raced home, barely beating the throw.

“Something like that might be frustrating for them, but when he caught it funny, I had to go,” Butler said.

Or how about Strawberry nearly barreling over Samuel when they both scored on Eddie Murray’s double to left field in the fifth? Samuel began the play on second, and Strawberry on first, but Strawberry’s long strides and aggressive running made up the difference.

“It was obvious Samuel was going to score, but I was trying to hold up Darryl, but he was moving so fast he never looked at me,” Amalfitano said. “It just threw my hands down when he rounded the bases and said, ‘Run! Run!’ ”