Dodgers Leave Poor Impression : Baseball: After Houston wins, 5-4, Astros’ Osuna says L.A. isn’t the team it used to be.

Like the executive who has started taking three-hour lunch breaks, the Dodgers are causing talk.

It started Wednesday after a 5-4 loss to the Houston Astros that included too little fielding, too many walks and a blown three-run lead.

“The Dodgers are not the same team they were last year,” pronounced Al Osuna, one of three pitchers who combined to retire 21 of the final 22 Dodger hitters.

“I don’t know if it is certain players who aren’t in their lineup every day or what but . . . they don’t seem to have the same explosive team as last year,” Osuna said. “They look like a team in transition. A team building for their future.”

The statement affected some of the Dodgers like a pitch behind the head.

“Hey, tell everybody the Astros said that,” Brett Butler said. “Maybe that will fire us up a little bit. Maybe that will get our pride up a little bit.”

They need to crank everything up tonight at Dodger Stadium when the defending National League champion Atlanta Braves arrive for a four-game series.

The teams are stumbling together, with the Braves coming off a three-game sweep by the Cincinnati Reds. The Dodgers have won once in six games.

“I think this series will awaken sentimental bones in everybody,” said pitcher Orel Hershiser, who will start Saturday. “It will awaken the spirit of last September.”

The Dodgers could have used that spirit Wednesday before 8,526 at the Astrodome. Things were so bad, Jose Offerman made another error and he wasn’t even the story.

Eric Davis, who is carrying the Dodgers despite suffering a slightly herniated disk in his neck, got a two-run single in the first inning against Mark Portugal. Dave Hansen added another run-scoring single.

But Hansen slipped while rounding first base and was thrown out. And the Dodgers fell back into a funk that reached its depths when the Astros scored the winning run in the sixth inning.

With Ken Caminiti on second base and one out after pitcher Bob Ojeda issued his second leadoff walk, Scott Servais blooped a ball to right field.

Darryl Strawberry, two for 11 in this series with only three balls that left the infield, began running for the ball and then broke into a jog.

He decided he could not catch the ball on the fly, so he slowed and grabbed it on a high bounce.

By then, Caminiti had rounded third. He scored a couple of steps ahead of Strawberry’s throw, breaking a 4-4 tie.

“It’s a reaction play. You either decide to go for it out of the chute or you don’t . . . and Darryl decided he could not catch it,” Butler said. “It’s strictly a judgment call. It was his choice.”

Butler would not comment on whether Strawberry made the wrong choice by not diving and trying to save the run.

Strawberry said he had no choice.

“I was not playing close enough to catch it,” he said. “I was playing the hitter more to pull. I tried my best to get to it, but I couldn’t.”

There was no error on the play. There was in the first inning after Ojeda, who had a 3-0 lead, walked leadoff hitter Craig Biggio.

After Biggio stole second on a strikeout of Steve Finley, Jeff Bagwell hit a grounder directly at Offerman. The ball bounced around his hands and legs and Bagwell was safe, giving Offerman his third error in five games.

Pete Incaviglia then doubled to left-center field, driving in both runs, making Offerman somewhat accountable for seven runs in those five games.

After the Dodgers scored again in the top of the second inning on Butler’s triple and Lenny Harris’ single--breaking an 0-for-10 slump--Ojeda slipped again.

He gave up a leadoff homer to Casey Candaele in the second. Then the Astros put together two more singles sandwiched around another walk to tie it.

Perhaps more difficult for Ojeda to swallow than his eight earned runs in 9 2/3 innings is that he gave up pitcher Dave Eiland’s first career homer and Candaele’s ninth.

“Last week I give it up to a pitcher and this week, nothing against Casey who is a great competitor, but . . . a home run? On a curveball?” Ojeda said. “Things will change. It’s a long season. Things will change.”

The Dodgers certainly hope so. If they come to Houston for the last three games of the season and get two hits in the last seven innings against Portugal, Osuna and Doug Jones, they are in trouble.

Most frustrating for their offense was the sixth inning, when Davis led off with a single, moved to third on a wild pickoff throw by Portugal with none out, but could not score. Hansen, Mike Scioscia and Offerman each hit hard grounders to strand him.

“We had a chance today to throw a knockout punch, and couldn’t do it,” said Davis, hitting .375 with eight runs batted in.

Unlike, well, last year.