Back at First, Karros Succeeds : Baseball: He returns to the starting lineup after a day off and hits a homer and double to lead the Dodgers to 5-2 victory.

With few exceptions, Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda decided to go with the same lineup Thursday as he had the day before, calling it a reward of sorts for reserves who had helped the Dodgers break an 11-game losing streak at the Astrodome.

“Don’t you think they deserve it?” Lasorda said.

One of the exceptions was restoring Eric Karros as first baseman, and Karros responded by doubling in a run, scoring twice and hitting a two-run homer to help the Dodgers to a 5-2 victory over the Houston Astros. It was the first time since Sept. 11-12, 1991, that the Dodgers have won successive games in the Astrodome, and the first series they have taken from the Astros since June of last year.

The victory sent the Dodgers back to Los Angeles with a 5-4 record on the trip as they begin a 10-game home stand tonight.

“If we would have won two out of three games in Chicago, we would be 6-3 and that would have been a good trip,” Lasorda said. “But winning two here was gratifying.”

The victory couldn’t have been more gratifying to Karros, who had been benched the day before because Lasorda believed he was struggling at the plate. Karros didn’t believe he was struggling that badly, but he came to the park early Wednesday to work with Lasorda before being held out of a game for only the third game this season. The problem, Karros said, was a tendency to open up his front foot.

“I worked on something yesterday that was causing me to have a little trouble, and I applied it and it worked,” said Karros, who had a .222 average on the trip. “I mean, I went two games without a hit and it’s panic time.”

The game might have been even more gratifying for Brett Butler, who went into his last at-bat with a chance to hit for the cycle. Butler went four for five--two singles, a double and a triple--before facing Astro reliever Todd Jones in the eighth inning and grounding out. But Butler hasn’t hit a home run since, well. . . .

“I don’t know,” said Butler, who hit three homers last season. “I have had a couple of opportunities to hit for the cycle, but I’ve never done it. The other times, it was always the triple I needed after I got the home runs early. But I was so ecstatic anyway. I don’t remember getting more than two hits in one game ever in the ‘Dome. Ever. Getting four hits was a series.”

Over 5 2/3 innings, Pedro Astacio (8-6) had struck out seven and given up one hit, a hard hit shot by Eric Anthony off Karros’ glove.

But with two outs in the sixth, Astacio walked Craig Biggio and Steve Finley before Jeff Bagwell hit a towering fly to the wall that Butler chased down. Pedro Martinez relieved, and Astacio ran off the mound to applause from an afternoon crowd of 25,965.

The Dodgers had a 4-0 lead at that point, having scored all their runs against Astro starter Doug Drabek (7-13), who gave up 10 hits and had nine strikeouts before being relieved in the sixth inning by Al Osuna.

But in the ninth inning, the Dodger shutout unraveled when the Astros got three consecutive hits against Todd Worrell, who had relieved Martinez at the top of the inning. After one run scored, Jim Gott relieved Worrell and, despite giving up a hit and throwing two wild pitches and despite a throwing error by catcher Carlos Hernandez, earned his 20th save.

With the Dodgers ahead, 1-0, in the third inning, Karros hit a towering two-run shot off Drabek over the left field wall. He doubled to left in the fifth to score Henry Rodriguez. Karros scored in the seventh inning on a sacrifice fly by Dave Hansen.

“I haven’t been striking out as much. It just seems that, from what I expected of myself this year, I haven’t been doing (the job) on a consistent basis,” said Karros, who is batting .260 with 12 home runs and 45 runs batted in.

“I have not met my expectations, but maybe I was expecting too much out of myself this year. Last year wasn’t an easy year, but I put up power numbers that were pretty comparable to a lot of guys. I thought, ‘Oh well, I’m going to do that again this year. I’ll just write those in and I’ll add something on top of that.’ And that’s obviously not the case.

“I still have a third of the season left, and, I’ve said this about 10 times this year, but hopefully today is the sign of things to come. “