Karros, Candiotti Good for Starters : Dodgers: Rookie hits two-run homer in first and pitcher wins his National League debut against Padres, 6-3.

Tom Lasorda was watching Eric Karros hit balls over the left-field fence before Thursday’s game here when a fan bellowed at him from the second deck.

“You see, Lasorda? You see?” the fan yelled. “You’ve got to play Karros! Play Karros!”

Lasorda turned toward the voice and yelled back.

“Hey buddy, how much did Karros pay you to say that?” he said.

One hour later Karros, a surprise starter in his hometown, hit the second pitch he saw this season into the left-field stands for a two-run homer to spark the Dodgers to a 6-3 victory over the San Diego Padres in their home opener.

“After the homer I hugged him and said, ‘You’re never going to forget this, are you?’ ” Brett Butler recalled. “He said, ‘No way.’ ”

Butler added: “This is what baseball is made of. This is what dreams are made of.”

Backed by six-hit pitching over 7 1/3 innings from Tom Candiotti, whose knuckleball fooled most everyone but former American Leaguers Fred McGriff and Tony Fernandez, the Dodgers spoiled festivities for a sellout crowd of 51,280.

Butler had four hits, including what he says is the second home run to lead off a game in his 11-year career. It led to a four-run first inning that finished starter Craig Lefferts, who had been 9-1 against the Dodgers.

Mike Scioscia had two hits, his first home run of the season, two runs batted in, and lost only one of Candiotti’s 94 pitches for a passed ball.

Jim Gott, cast as the stopper in a surprise bullpen rotation, responded with 1 1/3 scoreless innings for his first save. He had only two saves last year.

But the true hero, both in the Dodgers’ hearts and game plan, was Karros.

Lasorda had put Karros into the lineup against Lefferts long before he encountered Karros’ vocal supporter.

“But that guy gave me a little inspiration, to hear him calling out my name like that,” Karros said.

Karros said he knew he was starting after he arrived early Thursday afternoon for extra batting practice. But he said he didn’t get worried until after he saw the first pitch from Lefferts.

“I kind of waved at it and thought, ‘Oh no, here we go again,’ ” said Karros, who had one hit in 14 major league at-bats last season before impressing the Dodgers with a .370 average this spring.

But then came the next pitch, and he concentrated on what Lasorda had taught him about keeping his hips tight.

“Tommy always says, ‘Pop your belly button,’ ” Karros said. “So that’s what I did.”

And that’s the first thing he yelled to Lasorda when he met the manager in the dugout.

“It was so great to hear him yell, ‘I popped the belly button, skip, I popped it,’ ” Lasorda said.

And now Karros has given the Dodgers some first basemen for thought.

Kal Daniels or Todd Benzinger or Karros?

Daniels, benched Thursday, is batting .429. Benzinger had two hits Thursday, including a run-scoring double in the ninth.

Candiotti kept the Padres dizzy. One by one, they trudged back to their dugout after lunging, fading, hacking, chopping and leaping at his knuckleball.

“It was good to get that quick four-run lead,” Candiotti said. “I was able to use the knuckleball a lot more.”

He made only two serious mistakes. One came in the second inning against McGriff, when he hung a pitch that McGriff deposited 400 feet from home plate. At the time it was McGriff’s third homer in 12 at-bats this season.

The other mistake nearly finished him and the Dodgers, when he gave up a homer to Fernandez in the eighth to make the score 5-3. Candiotti gave up a single to Tony Gwynn after Fernandez’s hit, and that brought on a parade of Dodger relievers. Gott finally ended the threat when, with runners on first and second, he kept Benito Santiago hitless for the season (11 at-bats) by getting a groundout.

With offense and pitching like this, the Dodgers must be asking themselves, who needs defense?