Dodger Hitters Just Can’t Touch This Left-Hander : Baseball: Browning gives up three hits in seven innings and Reds win, 3-0. Gonzalez’s hitless streak reaches 20 at-bats.

Jose Gonzalez’s once-booming voice has been reduced to something just above a whisper. It is as unsteady as his bat, which no longer does what Gonzalez asks.

“I am not going to go crazy,” Gonzalez said softly Sunday, his eyes misting. “I will get out of this. I will.”

Promises have been the only things that have come easy to Gonzalez, whose baseball-worst hitting slump was on display Sunday in the Dodgers’ 3-0 loss to the Cincinnati Reds before 38,939 at Riverfront Stadium.

The game barely lasted more than two hours, but it was plenty of time for Reds’ starter Tom Browning to extend Gonzalez’s embarrassment by using him as a scapegoat for a Dodger offense that had only four hits, three of them off Browning and one off reliever Randy Myers.

The Dodgers, who totaled 19 runs and 24 hits while winning the first two games of this series, advanced runners as far as second base just twice against Browning.

Both times, the runner was left standing there by Gonzalez, who is hitless in all 20 at-bats this season.

No major leaguer who began this season on a 25-man roster has had as many at-bats as Gonzalez without getting a hit.

“I swing the bat good,” Gonzalez said. “I hit the ball good. And nothing! Never in my life has it been this bad. Never.”

With Mike Scioscia standing on second base after breaking up Browning’s no-hitter with a two-out double in the fifth inning, Gonzalez hit a grounder to shortstop.

With runners on first and second and two out in the seventh after a single by Lenny Harris and a walk to Scioscia, Gonzalez grounded to shortstop again.

It was not a good sight for the Dodgers, even though they won two of three games in Cincinnati and maintained a 2 1/2-game lead with the Reds coming to town in three days.

And it was not a good sight for starter Bob Ojeda, who gave up just two runs in seven innings but saw his record fall to 3-4. But it was an awful sight to Gonzalez, a former top Dodger prospect who has repeatedly asked to be traded because he is seldom used.

The only other major leaguer who began the season on a roster and does not have a hit this season is teammate Barry Lyons, but he has batted just nine times.

“I wonder what the record is,” Gonzalez said. “No, I don’t want to know. I don’t care.

“I just know that what they are doing to be me here is not fair. I see all kinds of players getting traded and getting their chances somewhere else. When do I get my chance? I do not deserve this.”

Gonzalez was making just his second start Sunday, and only because Darryl Strawberry, one of three regulars to missed the game with injuries, was nursing a sore toe. Kal Daniels also missed the same with an irritated knee, while Juan Samuel rested with two sore ankles.

All three could be back in the lineup today, although Samuel, who missed his first game of the season, may need a couple of more days of rest.

Not that Ojeda was blaming the odd lineup for his problems. But one of these days, he probably would like to blame somebody.

The Dodgers have scored just 29 runs in his nine starts, or just 3.2 runs per game. He has pitched as far as the seventh inning in all but three of those starts, yet no starter on the team has more starts and fewer wins.

“I guess this is just the way it is,” said Ojeda, whose earned-run average dropped to 3.93. “I’ve just got to hang with it. Things will all even out in the long run, I am sure.”

It didn’t seem like it in the first inning, when the Reds scored their first run on a bases-loaded line drive by Paul O’Neill that tipped off Ojeda’s glove and rolled slowly toward shortstop Alfredo Griffin while O’Neill sprinted to first.

“I never even saw the ball, but it sounded like it was right there,” said Ojeda, who allowed another run on one hit in the third. “Just my luck, it hit the back of my glove.”

Each time the Reds scored against Ojeda there was an intentional walk to Eric Davis, who went hitless in six at-bats with four strikeouts in the first two games of this series. Neither walk, however, helped the run to score.

“How much money does Eric Davis make?” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda asked of the player who makes $3.6 million a year. “He is not paid that much to be a bases-on-balls hitter. That’s why we did what we did.”