Met Bats Cool Off Martinez : Baseball: New York hits three homers against Dodger starting pitcher in 11-4 victory.

Those Dodgers who have been bragging that Ramon Martinez is starting to turn heads again didn’t mean this .

Three times in the first four innings Thursday, necks were twisted toward the empty right-field bleachers, which were soon populated with baseballs.

The pitcher was Martinez. The batters were three members of the New York Mets. The boos were not surprising.

Martinez, at the peak of his season, stumbled again during an 11-4 loss to the Mets before 25,916 at Dodger Stadium.

“Tonight, they hit the ball a long way,” Martinez acknowledged.

Manager Tom Lasorda described it differently.

“Ramon wasn’t throwing good from the start of the game,” he said.

A second-inning home run by Eddie Murray, followed two innings later by consecutive long homers by Bobby Bonilla (whose drove in three runs) and Mackey Sasser, helped the Mets avoid being the first team swept by the Dodgers in a three-game series at Dodger Stadium in nearly a year.

Bill Pecota added a homer in the ninth inning, giving the Mets their first four-homer game in 14 months.

But the most dramatic hit was the one that didn’t leave the park--a long fly ball to the center- field wall in the ninth inning by Murray.

If that ball had gone over the fence, Murray would have homered from both sides of the plate for the 11th time in his career, passing Mickey Mantle for the major league record.

“I knew about the record. I knew how much Eddie wanted it. . . . I would have gone over the fence to catch that ball,” Butler said. “He’ll get the record, but hopefully not against us.”

Perhaps the Mets, losers in 12 of their last 13 before Thursday, felt that way about being victims of a Dodgers’ sweep.

The last time it happened here was Aug. 30-Sept. 1, 1991, against the Chicago Cubs.

The Dodgers haven’t swept a three-game series anywhere for more than two months, since May 29-31 against the Cubs.

The Dodgers are thrilled the Cubs are coming to town this weekend.

This weekend also will mark the Dodgers’ last chance to pull even with Houston before the end of the Astros’ 26-game trip. Once again Thursday, the Dodgers blew a chance to pull the losing Astros into last place with them for the first time since June 18.

“We needed a game like that,” said Jeff Torborg, Met manager. “As poorly as we’ve been playing, that was definitely a relief.”

The good news for the Dodgers during these cost-cutting days was that the right-field bleachers were closed Thursday, meaning the home-run balls could be retrieved by employees.

The bad news was that Martinez, who used to throw balls into the stands after complete games, is now losing them involuntarily.

In 6 2/3 innings, Martinez gave up five runs and seven hits, with one hit batter and two wild pitches. The three homers he gave up were the most by a Dodger pitcher in one game this season.

And to think that before the game Martinez was the hottest Dodger pitcher, with three victories and a 2.60 earned-run average in his last four starts. People were forgetting that it took him 10 starts to win his first three games this season.

By the time the Mets had sent four batters to the plate Thursday, people remembered.

Murray, leading off the second inning, powered a 2-and-1 pitch to right field for his 13th homer. Although Murray has only seven hits in 39 at-bats (.179) against the Dodgers this year, he has two home runs in four at-bats against Martinez.

After Eric Karros gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead against winning pitcher Sid Fernandez with a two-run single in the third inning, Martinez struggled again.

After walking Chico Walker and Murray to start the fourth inning, Martinez worked Bonilla to a full count. Bonilla fouled off two pitches, then hit a ball that nearly reached the blue seats, halfway up the bleachers.

“He had to go with a fastball, his best pitch,” catcher Carlos Hernandez said. “What if Bonilla pops it up?”

To lose such a battle with Bonilla is one thing. But to lose a similar battle with Sasser, who did not have a home run since Sept. 10, 1991, is quite another.

The evening ended when Jose Offerman finished the Dodgers scoring in the ninth inning with his first home run since his first major-league at-bat, two years and 578 at-bats ago.

The gag of the night is that the Mets have the second fewest number of home runs in the National League. But it was not funny to the Dodgers, perhaps because they rank last.