Dodgers Off With a Bang : Baseball: They start trip by frustrating Expos, 4-3. Karros gets the big hit, Snyder the key catch.

In the words of Eric Davis, the Dodgers’ mission here at Olympic Stadium was simple.

“We are here trying to eliminate our dome-itosis,” Davis said before the Dodgers defeated the Montreal Expos, 4-3, Friday night.

The Dodgers don’t play well under any dome. At Olympic Stadium they have won only three games since 1989, and lost 19. The Dodgers hadn’t won here since May 12, 1992.

But this one did not go down easily, for the Dodgers or Expo starter Brian Barnes, who might find himself with a headache today. Barnes, pulled from the game after Eric Karros’ two-run double gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning, unleashed his frustration in the dugout.

“He beat his head against the wall when he came out--I don’t understand that,” Montreal outfielder Larry Walker said. “Whether that was because Barney didn’t want to throw that pitch to Eric, whether the bench called it or what, I don’t know. But he had been throwing a good game, and it came down to one pitch, and Eric crushed it.”

With the Dodgers down, 1-0, in the sixth, Brett Butler walked and Jose Offerman doubled over Marquis Grissom in center field to move Butler to third. Cory Snyder struck out, but Karros, who is batting .478 (11 for 23) in the six games he has batted cleanup, drove Barnes’ fastball off the wall in left-center. After Tim Scott relieved Barnes (2-4), Davis singled in Karros.

But even with six doubles--the most the Dodgers have hit since they had seven against Atlanta on April 16, 1988--they nearly squandered a 4-1 lead. The Dodgers had added another run in the seventh when Offerman singled in Butler, who had doubled. But the Expos came back to score two runs in the eighth inning after Ramon Martinez (7-4) was taken out for a pinch-hitter in the top of the inning.

“Last year we lose this game,” Karros said. “But this is a different team.”

One difference in this team is its defense, and this time it was Snyder who came through in the Expos’ final at-bat.

Jim Gott, who relieved Pedro Martinez with one out and the bases loaded in the eighth inning, gave up a two-run single to Sean Berry, then retired the next two batters to end the inning.

In the ninth, Gott struck out Grissom and Walker before Frank Bolick lined a shot to right field. The ball looked like it had a chance to go out. Surely the crowd of 23,368 thought it might. Snyder, thinking he was going to have to make a jump for it, got back to the wall quickly, with his glove outstretched. And then something happened that rarely occurred last season--the ball took a last-second turn in the Dodgers’ favor.

“Right at the end, it took a dive and hooked straight down,” Snyder said. “I didn’t think it had a chance to go out because it was a low line drive. Maybe with a normal-sized wall it would have, but this wall is high. But luckily it kept hooking.”

Gott picked up his 13th save.

The victory didn’t start out so lucky for Ramon Martinez, who found a way to win even though he didn’t have his best stuff, holding the Expos to one run and five hits through seven innings. Whether Martinez did or did not commit balk that forced in a run in the first inning, he had gotten himself into that jam in part by loading the bases with a walk. But when second base umpire Eric Gregg called the balk, Tim Wallach, who said Martinez stepped off with his right foot and not his left, entered into a heated discussion with Gregg.

“That is just the kind of thing that can set the tone,” said Wallach, who started at third base for the first time in three games, after being sidelined with a pinched nerve in his neck. “When something like that happens early, especially here where we haven’t won, it can hurt you. But we came back and stayed with it and didn’t let it beat us.

“We have as many wins after tonight as we did the whole last trip,” Wallach said, referring to the Dodgers’ 1-6 record on their Eastern swing earlier in the season.

“It’s a good way to start out.”