Braves Take Their Breaks : Baseball: Dodgers can’t take advantage of a struggling Glavine, 6-1.

The Dodgers arrived here from Florida on Thursday morning to face the most heralded team in the major leagues, the Atlanta Braves. The Dodgers brought their new offense, defense, bullpen and a 2-1 record.

By game time, however, the Dodgers learned they had lost their closer and their rookie catcher to injuries. Toward the end of the game, the team was still searching its bench for bats. And after the Dodgers lost, 6-1, they hoped that they would soon find a few breaks.

After the game, the Dodgers put Todd Worrell on the 15-day disabled list because of a strained forearm. Before the game, they had scratched Mike Piazza from the lineup because of a strained right side, suffered during batting practice Wednesday. He is day-to-day.

Behind a struggling Tom Glavine, the Braves won their home opener in front of 48,450 at Fulton County Stadium.

“The Braves scored one run on a bloop double with two outs, another on a missed first base, another one on a wild pitch, another one on a bad hop, and another one on an error,” Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said. “But their runs count.”

The Dodgers had a chance in the first inning, but Tim Wallach grounded into a double play with the bases loaded to end the threat. Terry Pendleton’s double off Tom Candiotti gave Atlanta the lead in the bottom of the first.

The key play came in the top of the second.

With two outs and runners on second and third, shortstop Jeff Blauser made a spectacular stop of a hard-hit one-hopper by Jose Offerman. Blauser dived, came up with the ball and made the play at first to end the inning.

“Without that play by Blauser, Jose’s base hit would have scored two runs and could have changed the whole pattern of the game,” Darryl Strawberry said.

To make it worse, the Dodgers, trailing 5-0 after six innings, looked at the mound in the seventh inning to see their former closer, Jay Howell, retire the side in order. By then, the Dodgers had left eight runners on base.

“The key play of the game was Blauser’s play,” said Candiotti, who gave up five runs on six hits in 5 1/3 innings. “We had runners on base the whole night, but every time you would look up at the scoreboard you saw a goose egg.”

The Dodgers managed only five hits, but Glavine’s six walks kept the bases busy. “The Braves did all the things they needed to,” Candiotti said. “Glavine pitched out of jams when he had to and the defense made the plays.”

Things got worse for Candiotti in the fifth inning. With one out, Glavine grounded to Eric Karros, who flipped the ball to Candiotti near first base. But Candiotti missed the bag and Glavine was safe on an error. Glavine later scored on a sacrifice fly by Gant for a 2-0 lead.

The Braves broke it open in the sixth inning.

Otis Nixon, batting for Glavine with the bases loaded, hit a sharp grounder right at Jody Reed that took a bad hop over his glove and went up the middle, scoring two runs. That was all for Candiotti, who was replaced by left-hander Steve Wilson.

Wilson bounced his first pitch to Deion Sanders and Mark Lemke scored on the wild pitch.

Rick Trlicek pitched an easy seventh inning for the Dodgers. But in the eighth, he gave up an unearned run, set up when Karros bobbled a grounder by Lemke. Karros picked up the ball and slammed it against his leg.

“We haven’t been playing bad,” Strawberry said. “We have been playing well, but we have had some tough luck. If we keep playing this well, sooner or later everything will click.”

Strawberry, batting cleanup again, walked twice and doubled in the eighth inning, scoring on a single by Karros.

* TODD WORRELL

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* CARLOS BAERGA

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