Dodgers Dish Up Dessert : Baseball: After a light lunch they use a little of this, a little of that and two homers to beat the Montreal Expos, 6-1.

He has tried just about everything to get his team on track, so Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda tried something different.

He took his team to lunch.

Then Wednesday night, the Dodgers went after the Montreal Expos with a series of stolen bases, sacrifice hits and even a squeeze play. And along the way a curious thing happened. The Dodgers started to show some power.

Eric Karros hit his second home run of the season and Eric Davis his first as the Dodgers beat the Expos 6-1 before 35,896.

The whole package was a complement to the pitching of starter Pedro Astacio (1-2) and the poise of 21-year-old reliever Pedro Martinez, who shut down the Expos’ threat in the seventh inning by striking out Marquis Grissom with the bases loaded.

“I was just thinking that I was unhittable. I just wanted to blow it by him,” Martinez said.

Lasorda believes the antics inspired by Roger McDowell at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce annual luncheon at a downtown hotel Wednesday helped loosen up his players. During lunch, McDowell and three other players sneaked into the kitchen, donned waiter’s uniforms and started serving coffee.

“You know, it really did help,” Lasorda said. “Brett (Butler) and I talked about it today. The attitude at lunch was happy, and we were having fun together. The guys that got up to introduce the players said nice things, and the attitude was really great.”

And McDowell?

“He brought a lot of laughs,” Lasorda said.

As Vin Scully said at the affair, McDowell is the only player he knows that, after his baseball career, wants to become a ventriloquist and drive a hearse.

Lasorda also made some curious moves with his lineup. He moved Darryl Strawberry up to the third spot and Karros to cleanup. Karros, on an 0-for-12 streak, responded in the sixth inning by hitting a 0-and-2 pitch off Expo starter Dennis Martinez (1-4) into the Expos’ bullpen. Karros’ solo homer put the Dodgers ahead, 3-1.

Davis, whom Lasorda had dropped to the sixth spot, hit a 2-and-1 pitch into the left-field seats to put the Dodgers up, 6-1.

“It’s good to get it out of the way. You have a tendency to doubt yourself,” Davis said of hitting his first homer of the season. “I have been waiting since opening day.”

Ahead, 3-1, the Dodgers scored twice more in the seventh inning. After Jose Offerman singled and Mike Sharperson, batting for Astacio, walked, Butler sacrificed the runners along. Jody Reed laid down a perfect squeeze bunt to score Offerman. Strawberry hit a fly ball to center to score Sharperson.

Maybe the way the Dodgers scored their first run wasn’t pretty, but three of the runs showed ingenuity. With their lack of offense lately, the Dodgers chipped away.

“When we get the guys in the right position who can do it and the situation calls for it, we do it,” Lasorda said of bunting and stealing bases. “When you’re behind, you can’t do a lot of that. When you are ahead, you can.”

The Dodgers had just returned from a seven-game trip on which they batted .158 as a team and scored no more than four runs in any game.

After 19 runs and 37 hits in three victories over Pittsburgh, they managed only 17 runs and 34 hits the entire seven-game trip. The Dodger public relations department has become so desperate for positive things to say it is are calling the team’s victory against the New York Mets on Tuesday night a sweep. The other game of the series was rained out.

The Dodgers had scored six runs in Astacio’s first three starts. Butler, who leads the team in hitting, is the only player besides Mike Piazza who has shown any consistency at the plate, and he did so again Wednesday night.

Butler put the Dodgers up, 1-0, in the first inning when he singled, moved to second base on a sacrifice by Reed and scored on two errors.

Butler led off the third inning with an infield single, his ninth. On Martinez’s first pitch to Reed, Butler stole second. On the next pitch, Reed faked a bunt and Butler stole third. Martinez’s next pitch hit Reed on the shoulder.

Strawberry struck out. With Karros at bat, Reed broke for second base. Delino DeShields took the throw at second from catcher Tim Spehr, but instead of freezing Butler at third, ran Reed back to first, tagging him while Butler scored.