Dodgers Answer Critics, 7-5 : Baseball: Victory over Phillies follows discussion of disparaging remarks by Bonds and others during the All-Star break.

What were supposed to be three days of rest became three restless days, troubled by anger, frustration and thoughts of revenge.

The Dodgers returned to work Thursday, explaining that it is difficult to relax with knives in your back.

After a meeting in which they discussed disparaging remarks made about them during the All-Star break, particularly comments by Barry Bonds, they scored six runs in the final two innings and beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 7-5, before 34,566 at Veterans’ Stadium.

Then Darryl Strawberry took on Bonds.

“He’s a joke,” Strawberry said.

Bonds, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ All-Star outfielder and potential top free agent, did not criticize Strawberry or any of the Dodger players or Manager Tom Lasorda.

Bonds was quoted as saying he would not play for the Dodgers because of their lack of direction. He also expressed concern over the soundness of Strawberry and teammate Eric Davis.

“He’s always running his mouth,” Strawberry said of Bonds. “I’m not concerned what he says. If he puts up the numbers I have for the last eight or nine years, then he can talk.”

Strawberry added: “And him talking about me being hurt, I’ve only been hurt the last two seasons. He’s not done anything in the postseason. I’ve got a (World Series) ring. What does he have?

“He is going to criticize me for being hurt? We didn’t want him over here anyway.”

And Strawberry was not even at the All-Star game to hear the other things that were said about his last-place team. Mike Sharperson was there. And in his own way, he was just as mad.

After relaying criticisms he had overheard during a players-only pregame meeting, he gave the Dodgers the lead for good in the eighth inning with a two-run homer against Terry Mulholland.

“Some of the things said there weren’t meant for me to hear,” Sharperson said. “I told the guys on the team about those things. It’s real easy to talk about a team in last place, but they still have to play those last-place teams. We’ll handle it from there.”

Circle Aug. 24, 25 and 26 in Los Angeles, and Sept. 4, 5, 6 in Pittsburgh.

Those are the dates of the remaining games between the Dodgers and Pirates--and Bonds, who might have surpassed Norm Charlton of the Cincinnati Reds on the Dodgers’ most-wanted list.

“I don’t (usually) talk about players on other teams, but I can tell you what I saw,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “Last time Pittsburgh was in town, Bonds was yelling at Eric Davis about missing so many games because of injury. And what happens to Bonds right after that? He gets hurt.”

Mitch Webster, who with Strawberry had called the meeting, said Bonds’ comments “were pretty weak stuff. He is so caught up in himself, he doesn’t worry who he is stepping on.”

The Phillies stepped on the Dodgers for seven innings Thursday, taking a 2-1 lead on an unearned run in the seventh after a passed ball by Carlos Hernandez with Tom Candiotti pitching.

The Dodgers looked exactly like a team that had arrived from Los Angeles late Wednesday, just in time to catch a 9:30 a.m. bus to the park Thursday for the 12:35 p.m. game.

Not that they don’t always looked tired when Candiotti pitches.

“Sometimes it just gets mentally exhausting,” said Candiotti, who had not won a start since June 7.

But then, sometimes, a player like Sharperson can make it all better.

Sharperson followed Jose Offerman’s leadoff single in the eighth inning with his second home run this month and third overall.

That gave the Dodgers a 3-2 lead, which they expanded with four runs in the ninth on a two-run single by Brett Butler, a run-scoring double by Webster and a run-scoring single by Hernandez.

Roger McDowell allowed three runs in the ninth, one of them unearned after a throwing error by Lenny Harris. But John Candelaria and Jim Gott then threw 12 consecutive strikes to end the game.

Gott recorded his fourth save, second in four appearances, and the Dodgers feel as if they are truly starting over.

“It got a little scary again, but maybe in this half of the season, things will come out like that for us,” Eric Karros said. “Instead of losing games like that, maybe we’ll keep winning them.”

Candiotti, who improved to 8-8 while lowering his ERA to 2.93, agreed. Perhaps that was because the seven runs were more than they had scored for him in all but one of his 17 previous starts this season.

“I think the guys read so much about not scoring runs for me, sometimes when I pitch they press,” Candiotti said.

With nine strikeouts, ranking him among the league leaders with 101, there wasn’t much Candiotti did wrong Thursday except miss the players’ meeting.

“I must have been out warming up,” he said. “That’s too bad. If it was one of those, let’s-turn-around-a-bad-first-half meetings, I’ve been in a lot of those. This was one time I could have shed some light.”