Another Timely Dodger Wallop : Baseball: Wallach’s three-run homer in the eighth inning powers Gross to a 3-2 comeback victory over the Padres.

Sometimes Tim Wallach seems to come out of nowhere, showing up at exactly the right time--when the rest of the offense has quieted for a few innings, or maybe the whole game.

He made such an appearance Monday night, when, after the Dodgers had been stymied for 7 2/3 innings by the San Diego Padres’ Joey Hamilton, he connected with the first pitch he saw and sent it over the left-center field fence. It gave the Dodgers all their runs in a 3-2 victory at Jack Murphy Stadium.

“It was an exciting moment,” said Wallach, whose 17 home runs lead the team. “After struggling for three years, when you do something good, you get excited about it.”

Wallach watched the ball leave the park and pumped his right fist as he rounded first base. It gave him 52 runs batted in this season.

“I don’t care about home runs, but the runs I drive in,” Wallach said.

But equally important to the club was the tenacity of starter Kevin Gross (6-4), who was shaky from the start but battled through seven innings. And Todd Worrell, although he pitched a shaky ninth inning, held the Padres the final two innings for his fourth save.

Said Gross: “I was sitting on the bench with Orel (Hershiser) when Eli came up to the plate and I said, ‘He’s been swinging good all night and has been swinging good anyway.’ I said, ‘How am I going to get a win out of this?’ and before I could look up, he was going deep. He’s a fantastic guy . . . . he deserves this season. I played with him in Montreal and here, and every guy in here loves him.”

Worrell walked the leadoff batter in the ninth and hit Phil Plantier on the foot with a pitch, but got out of the inning on a double play and a ground ball to short. “I try to get the job done anyway I can,” Worrell said. “I feel a lot better . . . . I’m throwing the ball well and got the breaks.”

Before Wallach’s homer, though, it wasn’t a game for the Dodgers’ highlight film: Gross going down like a boxer while successfully fielding a comebacker, and Mike Piazza tripping in slow motion as he went to throw out a runner. There was Brett Butler arguing a called third strike with plate umpire Ed Montague.

And Manager Tom Lasorda arguing with Montague after he called out Delino DeShields for interference in the basepaths. DeShields, returning to play for the first time since May 25, made an error in his first fielding chance, but by the fifth inning, he was taking away hits again.

Highlight films are sure to show Bip Roberts, who went three for four with a double and RBI, extending his hitting streak to 23 games, the longest in the majors and in the league since 1991, tying the Dodgers’ Brett Butler.

Through the first seven innings, Hamilton (3-2), making his seventh major league start, held the Dodgers to six hits and one walk. But in the eighth, he walked Butler and then had an agonizing at-bat with Piazza, who represented the tying run. Piazza battled Hamilton to a 3-and-2 count, and, when he walked, Hamilton dropped to his knees for a moment.

But it was Hamilton’s next pitch that decided the game, and when Wallach connected, there was little doubt.

“These kinds of things happen when you’re in first place,” Gross said with a smile.

That Gross got out of the first two innings by giving up only one run is testimony to his tenacity and good fielding, by him and his teammates. Gross walked four during that time, filling the bases twice.

In the first inning, he got out of the inning with a double play. The Padres got two consecutive hits in the second inning before the Dodgers got another double play. But then Gross walked Hamilton, putting Eddie Williams in scoring position at second for Roberts, whose line drive to right field extended his streak and put the Padres ahead by 1-0.

It was after Gross walked Luis Lopez to load the bases for the second time in two innings that pitching coach Ron Perranoski made a trip to the mound. But left in to face Tony Gwynn, Gross fielded the comebacker, which he caught as he dropped to his knees.