Montreal Catches, Passes Dodgers : Baseball: Expos’ tie score on Vander Wal’s three-run homer in the ninth, then win game in the 10th, 9-6.

The Dodgers, who had been living on the edge during their three-game winning streak, toppled off the side Saturday night in a huge late-inning collapse.

A two-out, bases-loaded walk by Roger McDowell on four pitches in the top of the 10th inning, followed by Delino DeShields’ two-run single, gave the Montreal Expos a come-from-behind 9-6 victory before 44,606 at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers, still deep down in the trenches but in the middle of a recent climb to respectability, were inches away from taking another small step.

But not quite there.

With two out in the top of the ninth inning and their stopper, Jim Gott, trying to protect a three-run lead, the Dodgers watched Montreal first baseman John Vander Wal blast a three-run home run over the right-field wall to pull the Expos into a 6-6 tie.

The Dodgers had scored four runs in the sixth inning to take a 6-2 lead that seemed as if it would lift them to their fourth consecutive victory and put them eight games over .500 for the first time this season.

For five innings, the game looked as if it would be the kind the Dodgers have been stuck playing recently--tight and to be decided by one run in the late going with clutch hitting and relief pitching.

The Dodgers had won the first two games of this series by 3-2 and 2-1 scores, and with the Expos’ Ken Hill and Kevin Gross churning through the opposing lineups after early troubles, it seemed likely to come down to a ninth-inning drama again.

That scenario seemed to blow apart--until the Vander Wal homer--when Hill was replaced after five innings, relieved by Jeff Shaw.

Cory Snyder, who had doubled in a run earlier, led off with a line-drive double down the left-field line and scored on a chopped single by Mike Piazza for his second run batted in of the evening. That broke a 2-2 tie.

The rally continued when Eric Davis drew a walk from Shaw and, against new pitcher Tim Scott, Tim Wallach hit a broken-bat ground ball to third with the runners going on the pitch. Third baseman Sean Berry had to pause to elude the flying end of the broken bat, and had no play once he had gloved the ball. That left the bases loaded and one out for Jody Reed.

Reed broke the inning open by lifting a soft liner over the head of shortstop Mike Lansing. The single scored Piazza and Davis for a 5-2 Dodger lead.

Brett Butler capped the rally with a single that scored Reed, with Gross making the third out when he was tagged out between second and third.

How ineffective were the Expo relievers in the sixth? Of the three outs they recorded, two were on the basepaths after run-scoring hits.

Gross left after seven innings, having given up three runs on six hits and three walks and striking out five. Todd Worrell, in his first appearance since coming off the disabled list Thursday, pitched the eighth, handing it over to Gott, going for his 18th save.

At the outset, both starting pitchers flirted with early departures. A marathon first inning featured three walks, five hits, four runs and untold winces from both dugouts.

Gross got the Dodgers into trouble quickly, giving up two runs. The first four Expo batters reached base and before the inning was over, every starter but the pitcher had batted.

Vander Wal and Moises Alou provided run-scoring singles.

Hill was making his first start since June 25. Hill, who won his first six decisions, has been nursing a groin injury and hadn’t won a game since May 26.

He, like Gross, started the first inning by walking the leadoff batter and, like Gross, paid for it.

Snyder’s ground-rule double over the head of center fielder Marquis Grissom scored Butler, narrowing the Expos’ lead to 2-1.

Snyder moved to third on a fielder’s choice before scoring on a two-out single by Piazza to make it 2-2.

Gross and Hill then settled down and combined for hitless second, third and fourth innings.

Gross, throwing his curveball for strikes, retired 15 Expos in a row after Alou’s first-inning single.