Gross, Neat as Pin, Sticks Padres, 5-4 : Dodgers: He strikes out eight in second consecutive victory. Dreifort earns fifth save.

Kevin Gross, usually a master of the messy performance, was neat and near-complete Friday night, cruising through the last-place San Diego Padres, 5-4, before a sellout Dodger Stadium crowd of 54,374.

Although the defense behind him was a little shaky, including errors by right fielder Raul Mondesi and second baseman Delino DeShields, Gross (2-1) wiggled out of trouble and lasted long enough to take advantage of the Dodgers’ sixth-inning scoring binge.

After his complete-game victory over the Giants in his last start and a series of quality outings from Dodger starters, Gross (2-1) pitched eight innings Friday, giving up eight hits, all three runs, walking one and striking out eight.

Closer Darren Dreifort, who got his fifth save, gave up an unearned run in the ninth, but got pinch-hitter Billy Bean to ground into a double play to seal the Dodgers’ victory, their fourth in a row on this home stand. They remain one game behind the front-running San Francisco Giants in the National League West.

Double plays and misplays had put the Dodgers behind, 3-1, before they scored four runs in the sixth to take a two-run lead.

“I know I’ve got to pitch good, but it’s a good feeling to know the guys are always battling back, that they’re going to score runs,” Gross said.

“When we were down, those guys were coming back, they were encouraging me. You can see it, it’s just the atmosphere in here now.

“I just tried to pitch as good as I could as long as I could, and give the guys a chance to battle back. That’s what’s going to make this a winning season for us.

“Now we just have to keep it going.”

With one out, DeShields drew a walk, Mike Piazza hit his seventh home run of the season, a blast well over the 395-foot sign in right-center field, to even the score against starter Wally Whitehurst.

“It was a fastball,” Piazza said. “He had been throwing me a lot of breaking balls, but I just waited and I got a pitch I could drive.”

After a walk to Tim Wallach, Henry Rodriguez’s double off of center fielder Derek Bell’s glove in deep center moved Wallach to third. Padre Manager Jim Riggleman removed Whitehurst (2-4), who had lasted at least six innings in each of his previous four starts.

Reliever Donald Elliott immediately gave up a double to Eric Karros, which scored Wallach and moved Rodriguez, who had held up on the flare down the right-field line, to third. One out later, Rodriguez scored on a wild pitch to give the Dodgers a 5-3 lead.

Through four innings, the Dodgers, slowed by two double plays, had six hits but only one run, a Mondesi home run in the third that matched Phil Plantier’s earlier solo shot for the Padres.

The Padres looked like they might blow open the game in the top of the fourth. Tony Gwynn hit a leadoff home run to right field to put the Padres ahead, 2-1, and Plantier followed with a double off of the center field fence.

But Gross settled down, striking out Bell and Scott Livingstone, then getting a comebacker from Brad Ausmus to end the threat.

“He really started to establish the breaking ball in the later innings,” Piazza said of Gross. “He pitched a great game tonight.”

In the fifth, the Padres scored on a Gwynn fly ball down the left field line that Rodriguez played into a double after turning the wrong way, and a two-out run-scoring single under Jose Offerman’s glove by Bell, to make the score 3-1.

By the eighth, Gross looked to be cruising toward his second consecutive complete game. But Dreifort was sent out to start the ninth, and Gross said that was fine with him.

“I didn’t even know if I’d make it out of the eighth,” Gross said when asked if he wanted to pitch the ninth. “But hey, we won.”