Dodgers Continue to Stumble, 4-1 : Baseball: Padres take advantage of errors and hand them seventh consecutive loss.

About the time that the San Diego Padres hit their second home run of the inning, Manager Tom Lasorda started pacing in the dugout. His team, which had lost its last six games, was once again playing terribly and about to lose its seventh.

Despite another day of extra batting practice, the Dodgers still weren’t hitting. And in the field, they were once again resembling the Keystone Cops.

So what’s a manager to do?

Pace. With hands in his back pockets, bags under his eyes, Lasorda continued to pace until starter Kevin Gross (7-11) got the last out of the sixth inning. Then with the Padres ahead, 3-1, and on their way to a 4-1 victory at Dodger Stadium, Lasorda briefly walked out of the dugout.

On the day that the San Francisco Giants moved to 40 games above .500, the Dodgers continued to show why they are manning the bottom half of the National League West. Before Mike Piazza hit his 23rd home run of the season in the fourth inning, the Dodgers had managed only two hits off of Padre starter Wally Whitehurst (4-6). Piazza’s homer, a shot into the first row of the left-field seats, tied Frank Howard for most home runs by a Los Angeles Dodger rookie. Howard hit his 23 in 1960.

But after Piazza put the Dodgers ahead, 1-0, Eric Karros made a running blunder that seemed to foreshadow what was to come. Karros hit a line drive over third base that sailed into left field, but he took too wide of a turn at the bag and was thrown out by Phil Plantier trying to get back, to end the inning.

To that point, Gross had held the Padres scoreless.

The Padres got their break in the fifth inning. With one out, Cory Snyder, who had made a running catch in deep right field in the third inning to rob Ricky Gutierrez, dropped Gutierrez’ fly ball to short right field, allowing Gutierrez to reach second base. Tony Gwynn followed with a routine grounder to Jose Offerman, but Offerman threw the ball so far to the right of Karros that Karros had to dive to make the catch. Gwynn was out, but by the time Karros could get up to throw to home plate, Gutierrez had trotted home easily from second base to tie the score, 1-1.

Then it got even worse.

Derek Bell led off the sixth inning by hitting Gross’ first pitch into the right-field seats. One batter later, Archi Cianfrocco took Gross deep to center field to put the Padres up, 3-1.

Lasorda started pacing. But by the end of the game, Lasorda only sat and stared while the Dodgers added another blunder in the ninth. With Padre runners on first and second, Offerman forgot to call time out when he went up to talk to reliever Omar Daal. Craig Shipley, who was on second base, trotted to third and nearly scored when Tony Gwynn grounded out to second base, but Karros fired a perfect throw to Piazza who tagged him out.

The loss moved the Dodgers below .500 for the first time since May 24, when they were 21-22 and in the midst of an 11-game winning streak. It also plummeted the team to 20 1/2 games behind the Giants and in fifth place.

“We’re worn out, it’s been a constant uphill battle,” Davis said describing the team’s skid before the game. “The emotions of night in and night out seeing where the Giants are and going through the streaks we have been through.”