New Dodgers, Same Mistakes : Baseball: They commit five errors, giving them 106 for the season, during 4-3 loss to the Padres.

The clock struck nine but the Dodgers remained the same old Dodgers, for better or worse.

It was going to take more than a mid-season deal to turn this nightmare around anyway, so the Friday night trading deadline came and went without a sound.

The Dodgers will play out the string with their kids. It will be an interesting proposition.

Thursday, youth was served in the name of Eric Young, who went two for four with a stolen base and a run batted in in his major league debut.

A night later came the growing pains, as Young struggled at the plate while committing two errors on the same play in the fifth inning.

The Dodgers committed five errors, making it 106 errors in 102 games.

These, too, are the Dodgers.

Friday night, they labored again against the San Diego Padres and lost, 4-3, before 33,066 at Dodger Stadium.

The Padres won the game in the eighth on a controversial call. Fred McGriff opened the inning with a double to left. After Jay Howell replaced starter Kevin Gross, Darrin Jackson sacrificed McGriff to third.

McGriff was then awarded home when catcher Mike Scioscia illegally scooped a pitch from Howell with his mask, in violation of baseball rule 7.05(d).

The rule states that two bases will be awarded if “the fielder deliberately touches a thrown ball with his cap, mask, or any part of his uniform detached from the proper place on his person.” After a lengthy argument, the Dodgers announced they were playing the game under protest.

Bruce Hurst (11-6) pitched seven innings for the victory. Randy Myers pitched a perfect ninth to earn his 20th save.

The Dodgers had a 3-2 lead going into the sixth, when Gary Sheffield opened the inning with a double against Kevin Gross (5-10). He moved to third on McGriff’s ground out and scored on Jackson’s single to left.

The Dodgers had a chance to regain the lead in their half of the sixth. They had Scioscia on third with one out, but he was tagged out on a botched squeeze play by Gross.

The game started strangely enough.

The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the first without a hit.

With one out, Gross walked Tony Gwynn and Sheffield. Gwynn was running on the ball-four pitch to Sheffield and took third on Scioscia’s throwing error to second. McGriff’s fly out to center scored Gwynn, but Sheffield was ruled out for leaving first base too soon when he tried to tag and advance to second.

Gwynn scored before the second out of the double play was recorded, so the run counted.

The Dodgers scored twice during the first, relying on yet another jump-start from Brett Butler, who worked a one-out walk from Hurst.

After Young struck out, the Dodgers combined three consecutive singles to center by Eric Karros, Eric Davis and Todd Benzinger to score two runs and take the lead.

Butler scored on Davis’ single, with Karros coming home on Benzinger’s hit.

Both pitchers settled down after shaky first innings and pretty much cruised until the fifth. Through four innings, Gross gave up only a two-out bloop double to Jerald Clark during the second. Hurst had given up three hits to the Dodgers. But during the fifth, poor defense let both pitchers down.

With one out, Clark singled to left. Stillwell hit a ground ball that second baseman Young could not handle moving to his left. He compounded the mistake with a throwing error to first that allowed the runners to advance to third and second.

Hurst then singled to right for his first RBI of the season. Gross then struck out both Tony Fernandez and Gwynn to get out of the inning without further damage.

In the bottom of the fifth, the Padre defense returned the favor.

Offerman opened the inning with a bunt single, advancing to second on Sheffield’s throwing error. Offerman advanced to third on Hurst’s balk and scored on Butler’s single, giving the Dodgers a 3-2 lead.

Dodger Vice President Fred Claire said it was time to get past the trading deadline and move on.

“I’m not going to remove talent from the club,” he said. “We need to settle down. I’m happy the deadline’s over. It will be helpful to the players. We can play the last two months with as much focus as possible, and not have that distraction.”