Not a Thing Goes Right for Dodgers : Baseball: Four errors and poor pitching are costly in a 10-3 loss to the Pirates.

All too often, the Dodgers have come unraveled this season in one short, miserable stretch of baseball. This has led to the game of ifs: If not for the (fill-in-the-blank) inning.

Tuesday night, the damage was spread more equitably in a 10-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The crowd of 24,170 at Dodger Stadium watched them lose in a variety of ways.

Errors--no surprise--were part of the equation. The Dodgers committed four, including a costly three-base error in the second inning when left fielder Todd Benzinger went back to the wall and dropped a fly.

“It was an easy catch,” he said. “I just hit the wall. The wall got in my way. I didn’t bother to glance back to see where I was, and I never dreamed the ball would carry that far. It’s an easy catch, and I should have had it.”

That opened the second inning, and the Pirates went on to score two runs, going ahead, 4-0, and making a Dodger comeback that much more improbable.

“We got too far behind,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “You’ve got to play good defensive baseball when the team is not going to score many runs.”

The Dodgers were hurt by center fielder Andy Van Slyke, who almost secured the Pirates’ victory single-handedly. Van Slyke singled, doubled and homered, driving in four runs.

A shaky outing by Dodger starter Ramon Martinez (8-11) didn’t help, either. Martinez lasted two-plus innings in what seemed a continuation of his last game, an 11-4 loss to the Mets in which he gave up three home runs.

“He wasn’t throwing the ball well,” Lasorda said. “It didn’t seem like he had any velocity on the ball.”

Asked if Martinez might be hurt, Lasorda said: “All I can go by is what he said. I mean, he won 37 games his first two years.”

On the other side, reliever Danny Cox (3-2) was an integral part of the Pirate victory. He took over from struggling starter Danny Jackson in the fifth inning and shut down a Dodger threat, allowing three hits in 3 2/3 innings.

The Pirates started quickly, scoring five runs in the first three innings. They finished with five more in the final three.

“I’m trying to get callous to it (losing),” Dodger center fielder Brett Butler said. “Yesterday was an example of how to win. Today was an example of what we’ve done all year. I’ll never get used to it. If anybody gets used to it, they need to get out of the game.”

Maybe it had something to do with the standings. The incentives were vastly different for both teams. Montreal, winner over Atlanta on Tuesday night, crept closer to the National League East-leading Pirates before the start of the Dodger game.

All the Dodgers are concerned with is catching fifth-place Houston.

Despite falling behind, 5-0, the Dodgers made it a game for a while. The long climb back began in the fifth inning when they cut the Pirate lead to 5-3 and forced Jackson’s exit.

Jackson would have remained in the game had the acrobatic Jose Lind played a fairly routine double-play ball. With one out and the bases loaded, Eric Young rapped a sharp bouncer at Lind, who, apparently angling his body to make the double play, bobbled the ball and then dropped it. The error allowed Carlos Hernandez to score.

The next batter, Eric Karros, drove in Dave Hansen with a single up the middle, pulling the Dodgers within two runs. That was it for Jackson, who was replaced by left-handed reliever Cox.

But the bases were still loaded, and the Dodgers were able to pick up one more run when Mitch Webster drove in Jose Offerman with a grounder to second.

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