Piazza, Dodgers at a Loss : Baseball: Star catcher fails in potential go-ahead at-bat while continuing to struggle in a 9-8 defeat at St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS — Mike Piazza doesn’t know why this is happening; he simply knows that it is.

He can’t hit, no matter how hard he tries, which could be too hard.

He swings at bad pitches, something he seldom did last season. Thursday afternoon at Busch Stadium, he swung at a really bad one, leaving what would be the tying and winning runs on base as the Dodgers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals, 9-8.

“I try to look at the positives--there’s not much there, but what can I say?” Piazza said.

“This is pretty tough, but hopefully you can learn as much as you can by going through something like this. I’ve gone through slumps before, but at this level everything is amplified and there is no place to hide, especially with my position on this team.”

Thursday was supposed to be a day off for Piazza, a time for him to clear his head and give his .091 batting average--it’s now at .086--a rest. But the Dodgers, trailing, 9-2, after six innings, rallied for five runs in the eighth inning and another in the ninth. Piazza, pinch-hitting in the eighth, flied out to the warning track in right field, then stayed in the game.

With two out in the ninth, Raul Mondesi on second and Tim Wallach on first, Piazza came to bat again.

“I said at the beginning of the ninth inning that if Mike’s turn to bat comes up, we win the game,” Manager Tom Lasorda said.

Not this time. Against reliever Mike Perez, who had been flawless in his three save appearances, Piazza battled to an even count. Then he swung at a high fastball, and the walk back to the dugout was a long one. Perez had his fourth save.

Delino DeShields understands what Piazza is going through.

“I hit .238 my second year (in the majors), and I said it was never going to happen to me,” DeShields said. “If you would have told me it was going to happen, I would say, ‘Never!’ ”

During the winter, Piazza became the most celebrated rookie of the year the National League has had in some time, and clearly the biggest attraction the Dodgers have had since 1991, when Darryl Strawberry was signed as a free agent.

Piazza’s photograph was on the cover of nearly every preseason baseball magazine as well as buses and billboards all over Los Angeles. And he continued to show his power in spring training, hitting better than .400 with nine home runs.

But in nine games since the season started, Piazza has struggled. Pitchers who faced Piazza last season aren’t about to throw him anything good if they can help it. And, right now, Piazza probably couldn’t hit it anyway.

“I don’t think (the Dodgers) want any more from me than I want for myself,” said Piazza, who has three hits in 35 at-bats. “I will work just as hard, no matter where I am hitting in the lineup, because I still have to respond.

Lasorda, trying to get his entire team to respond, shook up the batting order, benching Piazza and DeShields, who had asked for the day off because of a sore thigh muscle. Wallach, batting cleanup, responded by going three for five, including a double and home run, with four runs batted in.

But not much happened against Cardinal starter Allen Watson (1-0) until the eighth inning, when he was tiring. By then, the Cardinals were ahead, 9-2, having scored six runs against Pedro Astacio (0-2) and three off Chan Ho Park.

Chris Gwynn, pinch-hitting for Park, got the first of five hits as the Dodgers batted around and scored five runs. Wallach, who had homered in the sixth, hit a two-run double off the left-field wall, moving the Dodgers to 9-5. DeShields, also pinch-hitting, lined a two-run single through the hole in left.

In the ninth, Wallach grounded through the hole at third, scoring Brett Butler and moving Mondesi to second. And up stepped Piazza.

“I will continue to work extra hard and take extra batting practice and, hopefully, become a better player because of this down the line,” Piazza said. “Hopefully, I will have more than 30 at-bats in my career. Like I said, the timing is not there, and it’s one of those things I have to battle through.”