Avery Teaches Dodgers Lesson : Baseball: Lasorda’s extra instruction goes for naught. The Braves win, 2-0.

When Tom Lasorda assembled his Dodgers at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium early Monday afternoon for a one-hour study hall on remedial baseball fundamentals, he assumed he brought everything.

There were infielders to work on grounders, pitchers to practice covering first base, outfielders to work on discovering cutoff men.

Lasorda even had a blistering speech on professionalism.

But Lasorda forgot to teach one thing--how to beat Steve Avery, who gave up only five hits and sent the Dodgers to their fifth consecutive defeat, 2-0.

“Our workout had nothing to do with extra batting practice,” Todd Benzinger said.

Lasorda, with a team that has dropped seven games in the standings in 14 days, stared at the floor and sighed.

“Tomorrow, I guess I’ll just bring the manager out early,” he said.

With 43,239 fans helping the Braves pass the 1-million mark in attendance at the earliest date in club history, it was night of numbers.

--Avery has the Dodgers’ number. He is 7-1 against them in his brief career with a 1.31 earned-run average.

He handed them their fifth shutout of the season, only one Dodger advancing as far as third base while he walked one and struck out three.

Afterward, Avery had more trouble explaining his record against the Dodgers.

“I get asked about that every time, and I still don’t have an answer,” he said.

--Orel Hershiser, who had the Braves number, lost to them for the first time since Aug. 8, 1987.

He could have, and probably should have, stretched his streak against them to 13-0 after giving up three singles and a home run by Deion Sanders in seven innings.

“I guess I was due,” said Hershiser, who is 19-7 against the Braves. “Maybe Avery will be due in about two years.”

--The Dodgers committed no errors after making five errors in two days in Cincinnati. But they also had only one extra-base hit, giving them an average of one per game for the last eight games.

While their defensive problems have been glaring, the Dodgers have quietly averaged only 3.5 runs since Eric Davis joined Darryl Strawberry on the disabled list May 23.

The best Dodger hitter Monday was actually Hershiser, who had two singles before being removed for pinch-hitter Benzinger during the eighth inning.

“You can take batting practice until you’re blue in the face, but you’ve got to do it in the game, and we haven’t been doing it,” the Dodgers’ Eric Karros said.

The Dodgers had two scoring opportunities, but Avery got strikeouts to squelch each of them.

With runners on first and second during the first inning after a single by Juan Samuel and a walk to Karros, Mitch Webster was struck out looking.

During the eighth, with Benzinger on third after his pinch double and a bunt by Brett Butler, Mike Sharperson struck out looking and Samuel grounded to third.

The Braves needed only one scoring opportunity, and it came after Avery poked a single over Samuel’s head to start the third inning. Samuel jumped one way, and the ball tailed another.

After Sanders was walked and Gant was hit in the elbow, David Justice hit a slow grounder to Samuel. He grabbed the ball and spun, but Gant jumped out of the way while running behind him.

Samuel was forced to throw to first for the out, and Avery scored the game’s first run.

“Even if I throw to Jose (Offerman) at second base, we can’t get a double play, the ball was hit too slow,” Samuel said. “I did the only thing I could do.”

Sanders hit his fourth homer of the season during the seventh inning. But despite the loss, the Dodgers didn’t question the value of the extra early workout.

“What were we going to be doing then, anyway, shopping?” pitcher Bob Ojeda asked. “We can shop in November. Now we need to show people that we aren’t taking this losing laying down. The workout was great if just to send a message.”

Said Samuel: “When you play bad, you have to take your punishment.”

He simply didn’t say for how long.