Dodger Homers Emit Sound of Victory, 6-4 : Baseball: Daniels, Strawberry and Murray hurt Padres. Martinez is hit in the right arm by line drive.

Of all the loud sounds made Tuesday night by the Dodgers, whose three power hitters hit home runs in the same game for the first time, the most startling noise accompanied a ball that went only 60 feet.

The sound was a thud, followed by an eerie hush. In the sixth inning of the Dodgers’ 6-4 victory over the San Diego Padres, Jack Howell hit a line drive that hit right-hander Ramon Martinez in the pitching arm. Martinez’s 6-foot-4 frame crumpled across the front of the mound.

“We were just hoping it didn’t break his arm,” Dodger relief pitcher Jay Howell said.

It didn’t, but the Dodgers won’t know the extent of the injury until today. It initially was called a bruised right biceps, and Martinez said he “thought” he could make his next start.

“It’s sore right now, but it’s fine,” Martinez said after becoming the National League’s second 15-game winner despite his fourth consecutive shaky outing.

“I iced it for 20 minutes, and it feels a lot better. It didn’t hit me on the bone.”

Charlie Strasser, the Dodgers’ assistant trainer, said, “It started swelling, we got it on ice, but how much that swelling will come back with no ice, we won’t know until (today). We can make a better evaluation then.”

Before 35,227 at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers won their second consecutive game, increasing their lead over the second-place Atlanta Braves to 2 1/2 games and pushing the Padres into fifth place, 9 1/2 games behind.

The Dodgers’ maligned middle order of Kal Daniels, Darryl Strawberry and Eddie Murray finally acted like a team. Their three home runs totaled nearly 1,200 feet.

“Those balls would have gone out of Yellowstone Park,” said Roger McDowell, one of three Dodgers relief pitchers who took over for Martinez, with Jay Howell getting his 13th save.

Two of the home runs were against starter Greg Harris, whose 21-inning scoreless streak ended.

Murray started it with a two-run home run in the first inning that went 400 feet over the center-field fence. It was his 12th home run and team-leading 70th and 71st runs batted in.

Two innings later, Strawberry hit a ball a dozen rows up in the right-center field seats for his team-leading 19th homer, another 400-foot shot.

Then, in the seventh inning, Daniels ended the barrage with a home run that went about 375 feet into the right-field seats. It was Daniels’ 13th homer, but his first since July 30.

“It’s about time, ain’t it?” Daniels asked. “If I can correctly recollect, this may be the first time we’ve even driven in runs in the same game.”

Murray’s homer, which came after Strawberry’s two-out, two-strike, run-scoring single, gave the Dodgers a 3-0 lead in the first. Strawberry’s homer gave them a 4-0 lead in the third, which became 5-0 after Dave Hansen’s run-scoring single three batters later.

With six home runs in the first 20 days of August, Strawberry is finally having the sort of month that is expected of him. He has six hits in his last seven at-bats to raise his average to .256, his best since April 28.

Strawberry is also hitting .304 since the All-Star break, with 11 home runs and 30 RBIs. In the first half of the season, he had eight homers and 31 RBIs.

“Everybody was kind of writing me off for this year, saying I was not going to be doing too much . . . well, I’m looking at a good month right now,” Strawberry said. “I’m sitting right in the middle of a good month, in fact. And it’s really fun. This is how I have fun.”

Despite his victory, Martinez didn’t have a lot of fun, working five total innings, giving up four runs and five hits. In his last four starts, he has given up 20 runs in 22 2/3 innings, increasing his earned-run average from 2.25 to 2.94.

While attempting to end a career-high three-game losing streak, Martinez was in trouble again when the injury trouble occurred.

He had held the Padres hitless for three innings before giving up two runs on two singles and two walks in the fourth inning. Martinez struggled again in the fifth, giving up another run on a walk, a double and a fly ball by Tony Fernandez that made the score 5-3.

Benito Santiago started the sixth inning with a single up the middle against Martinez. Then Howell, the former Angel who haunted the Dodgers with two home runs Monday, lined the ball off Martinez’s arm for a single.

UNCERTAIN DODGER: First baseman Eddie Murray says he doesn’t expect to be a Dodger next season. C6