Dodgers Hit Bottom in West : Baseball: They fall to Astros, 2-1, in 12 innings to run losing streak to eight games and drop into last place.

The ball bounced off the outer wall in center field and back onto the Astroturf. Mitch Webster caught it on one hop and threw it back toward the infield.

It was as if he were hoping the umpires wouldn’t believe that a .188 hitter could have won a game, 2-1, in the 12th inning with a 400-foot home run.

As if anything that happened to these Dodgers would be hard to believe.

Their losing streak was stretched to eight games Friday when a leadoff homer by Houston’s Luis Gonzalez in the 12th beat them before 18,406 at the Astrodome.

In this battle of division lightweights, the Dodgers fell into sole possession of last place for the first time since May 22, the losing streak becoming their longest since 1987.

The Dodgers lost nine consecutive games that year, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 5. A third loss here Sunday would equal the longest losing streak in Los Angeles history, 10 games in 1961.

Gonzalez added insult to injury.

“I look over at the Dodgers, with a couple of veterans and some guys, and they seem almost like an Astros team,” said Gonzalez, who hit his third homer.

The Dodgers saw both the long and short of losing.

The long of it was that, besides Gonzalez’s blast, Eric Anthony had tied the score with a pinch-hit home run against Tom Candiotti in the seventh inning.

The short of it was that twice the Dodgers failed to execute sacrifice bunts in extra innings. That cost them.

They have lost 19 of 25 one-run games, including five in a row. And they have won once in six extra-inning games.

“It was tough going in Cincinnati and Atlanta,” Candiotti said. “Both of those teams were hot, and we thought coming here . . . well, it seemed like a good place to start.”

But after managing only six hits in nine innings against five Astro pitchers, they couldn’t finish it twice.

In the 11th inning, after Eric Karros led off with a single to left field, pinch-hitter Orel Hershiser forced him at second with a bunt and the inning ended on a double-play grounder by Dave Anderson.

In the 12th, after Carlos Hernandez led off with a single, Jose Offerman popped up a bunt and that threat ended two batters later.

“We don’t get those bunts down. We don’t execute. We’ve got nobody to blame but ourselves,” said Eric Davis, who came off the disabled list to pinch-hit and went hitless in two at-bats.

Those were his first official swings since May 22, and he could be back in the starting lineup today.

The Dodgers also had an excellent chance in the ninth inning after a one-out double by Mike Scioscia.

But pinch-runner Anderson was stranded on second base after reliever Rob Mallicoat retired pinch-hitter Hernandez on a grounder, and reliever Doug Jones retired Offerman on a fly ball to left field.

Jones was brought in to force Offerman to bat left-handed. Offerman is hitting .202 left-handed, and .296 right-handed.

The Dodgers scored first, in the sixth inning on a one-out triple by Butler and a run-scoring double by Lenny Harris against starter Pete Harnisch.

Butler had three hits in his previous 26 at-bats before that hit, and Harris had not had a run batted in since June 1.

The Astros came back with two out in the seventh inning when Anthony, in his first at-bat against Candiotti, hit a 1-and-1 pitch over the right-field fence for his fifth homer of the season and second pinch homer of his career.

Until that moment, Candiotti had a four-hit shutout.

The teams battled to scoreless tie through the early part of the game, which should have been expected.

Candiotti had held the Astros to two runs in a complete-game victory in his only start against them earlier this year.

Harnisch had a 2.61 ERA in his last eight home starts and had not given up more than three runs in any of his past four starts.