Dodgers Give Braves a Break : Baseball: They make two errors in 12th inning, and Gant’s sacrifice fly gives Atlanta a 5-4 victory.

If Dodger tempers were a little hot Wednesday night after their extra-inning 5-4 loss to the Atlanta Braves, it was understandable. Figuring into the outcome was a questionable call, a two-error 12th inning, the Dodgers’ second one-run loss in two nights, and the fact that it was just plain hot--93 degrees at game time.

For the Braves, the victory extended their winning streak to nine games and kept them at 6 1/2 games behind the San Francisco Giants, who also won. The Dodgers have lost nine of their last 12 games, and are still wallowing in fourth place in the National League West--20 1/2 games back.

The way the Dodgers are playing lately is the way the team played at the beginning of the season when they dug a hole in the division with a 14-22 start. Their latest debacle moved them one game under .500 with a 59-60 record. But the way the Dodgers are losing lately is also the way they played last season, when, at this same point in time, they were 22 games behind the Braves with a 51-68 record.

So what has changed?

Jose Offerman made his seventh error in 11 games in the 12th inning when he pulled Cory Snyder off the first base bag on a routine grounder by Mark Lemke, who was called safe at first by first base umpire Bruce Froemming. Snyder recovered nicely by leaping to catch Offerman’s throw, then came down to tag Lemke in the basepath, but Froemming said Lemke’s foot was on the bag before the tag.

“Terrible call,” said Manager Tom Lasorda. “The guy tags him before he gets to the bag and he calls him safe.”

Lemke later moved to third on a pickoff throwing error by reliever Roger McDowell (4-2), then scored the winning run after a sacrifice fly by Ron Gant.

But how the game got that far began in the ninth inning. While the 45,473 Braves’ fans at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium chanted and waived their foam-rubber tomahawks, Todd Worrell simply stood on the mound and stared. He was brought in to close out the game in the ninth inning with the Dodgers ahead, 4-3, and with two outs, he had just given up a game-tying double to Damon Berryhill.

With the go-ahead run on second base, Worrell managed to wave off pitching coach Ron Perranoski, who had made a brief appearance at the mound, before he got Lemke to ground out.

“Things just don’t fall my way right now,” said Worrell, who gave up his 18th earned run in 18 2/3 innings.

“It’s hot and cold and that can be frustrating . . . I definitely have not enjoyed this year. Not having the number of innings I’d like to have by now is difficult. But in between the lack of innings and not being used consistently, and I know a lot of that is due to my injury, and my inability to do the job at times, it makes it hard. (Jim) Gott and Pedro (Martinez) are throwing well and it becomes hard to consistently put me in the game. In the past when I have struggled I have worked through the struggles by pitching. “It’s a tough dilemma,” Worrell said, “and I don’t have the answers.”

The Dodgers don’t appear to have the answers to Offerman’s struggles either. Lasorda, when asked if Offerman should perhaps be sat down or sent down to triple A for a while to work through his throwing problems, said: “The guy is hitting .280,” Lasorda said. “He’s just ran into a little slump right now. Fielders go into slumps like hitters. We have to keep trying to build up his confidence.”

But, unlike the bullpen, Lasorda doesn’t have anyone to replace Offerman, whose errors have cost the Dodgers three games this past week. Worrell wouldn’t have been on the mound in the ninth inning if Jim Gott, who relieved Orel Hershiser to pitch the eighth, didn’t twist his ankle during the inning.

It was a tough no-decision for Hershiser, who gave up three runs on three hits in seven innings. Two of those hits were home runs, the second a two-run shot by Fred McGriff, which put the Braves ahead, 3-2.