Dodger Loss Begs Question About Relief : Baseball: But Lasorda has no clear answer after Hershiser is left in to endure Cub rally in the eighth inning of 7-4 Chicago victory.

What happened in the clubhouse after the Dodgers’ 7-4 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Saturday was far more indicative of the way this team’s morale is eroding than what happened in the game, which once again they lost in the late innings.

Orel Hershiser, always affable in interviews even in the most dismal of times, dressed as quickly as possible, gave succinct but polite answers and ended the interview session by asking, “Is that it?” Then, not waiting for surprised reporters to answer, he walked out of the visitor’s clubhouse at Wrigley Field.

Was he mad? No one needed to ask. Hershiser (3-3) won’t criticize his teammates or management and last week abruptly ended an interview when he thought a reporter was trying to provoke him to do so. But the opposite has not been true. There have been grumblings this week that Hershiser, who took himself out of the game during his last start because his hip bothered him, has played too much golf on the trip and he was aware of the criticism. Yet, after being left in the game to crumble during the eighth inning, he explained his performance this way: “I was like a time bomb waiting to go off.”

Why was Hershiser left in so long during the Cubs’ six-hit, four-run eighth inning? He gave up two homers, a walk and a single before he was relieved.

“You know as much about it as I do,” Manager Tom Lasorda said, when asked if he noticed Hershiser was tired. “He probably didn’t make the right pitch, (pinch-hitter Kevin Roberson) hit it out.”

But Lasorda, when asked if he was leery about going to his bullpen, said: “Not necessarily. . . . (Hershiser) knows how he feels too. He was leading, 4-3.”

Hershiser, when asked if he was surprised he was left in so long, said it’s not his job to decide when he comes out. “I don’t look over at the bullpen, I concentrate on the next hitter,” he said. “If they don’t let me pitch to the next hitter, then . . .”

It was the Cubs who were relieved, having finally ended a 10-game losing streak--their worst since 1985 when they lost 13.

“It’s not an easy thing to do, to go up there after sitting and swing at a good pitch,” said Roberson, who has two pinch-hit homers this season. “You never know what could be the click for the team to do well.”

Roberson hit for starter Willie Banks (7-5) to lead off the eighth inning and hit Hershiser’s first pitch into the right-center field seats to tie the score. A single and a double play later, Sammy Sosa hit another solo homer, putting the Cubs ahead, 5-4.

After Hershiser walked Derrick May, in came Al Osuna, who was shortly followed by Darren Dreifort. But there would be no relief. They combined to give up three more hits and two more runs. Randy Myers shut the Dodgers down in the ninth for his 13th save.

“I don’t think I was fooling them,” said Hershiser, who has gone eight innings only twice in 13 starts. “I just didn’t pitch well. I didn’t feel good the whole game. You never give into it, you just keep pitching. . . . (Pitching coach Ron) Perranoski was trying to help me during the game, and you saw how I got out of some of it. We had five double plays and three of them were line-drive double plays. I think there was only one hit on the ground. I was real fortunate.”

Against Banks, the Dodgers scored two runs in the second inning on singles by Henry Rodriguez, Eric Karros and Garey Ingram, a bases-loaded walk to Hershiser and a groundout by Brett Butler.

They went ahead, 4-2, in the fourth inning on a throwing error by Shawon Dunston and a single by Butler.

Karros, who made some fine defensive plays, extended his hitting streak to a career-high 14 games and is batting .303. Raul Mondesi’s streak ended at 14 games.

Lasorda, often criticized for losing confidence in a reliever and not using him, has an entire bullpen that appears to have lost confidence. It has blown 15 of 24 save opportunities, including three on the team’s current trip, during which the Dodgers are 2-6.

Who is to blame?

“If you look at what happened (on the trip), how many saves have been blown?” Lasorda said.