Latest Poor Outing Mystery to Hershiser : Baseball: Right-hander continues to struggle during 7-6 loss to Padres.

Orel Hershiser isn’t worried about the mini-slump that has gripped him in his last three starts. He would simply like to find out what caused it.

Hershiser lasted only four-plus innings Wednesday as the Dodgers lost the rubber game of a three-game series against the Padres, 7-6, before 30,978 at San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium. He was hammered for 10 hits and six runs, five of them earned, and was an admittedly puzzled man.

“I just pitched poorly,” said the 35-year-old right-hander. “When you pitch like that, you give up runs. I threw all right, but my location was off. I was high in the strike zone or over the middle of the plate.

“It hasn’t been that long since I was pitching well, so I’m not jumping off any bridges, but I’d like to find some answers. When I’m not doing well, I don’t just bang my head against the wall and keep doing the same things.”

Hershiser wasn’t the losing pitcher--Darren Dreifort was--but that technicality hardly eased the pain of an outing that raised his earned-run average from 3.74 to 4.06.

“I definitely haven’t found it,” Hershiser said. “I guess if you haven’t found it, you don’t have it. I don’t know. Is that right? Where’s Yogi?”

Hershiser’s reference to the legendary linguist, Hall of Famer Yogi Berra, illustrated his remarkable ability to make the best of a bad situation.

Asked how he planned to tackle his problem, Hershiser said, “I’ll just have to go through the normal process of breaking down my mechanics. I’ve been doing something that I’m sure can be corrected, and I can only hope I find the solution real soon.”

Hershiser’s troubles Wednesday saddled the Dodgers with a 6-2 deficit, and with Andy Benes pitching for the Padres, the game looked as good as over. But Benes gave up a solo home run to Carlos Hernandez in the seventh, and after Benes left, Raul Mondesi tied the score with a three-run shot against Mike Campbell.

Dreifort promptly surrendered the tiebreaking run in the bottom of the same inning, walking two and giving up Luis Lopez’s career-high fourth hit, a double.

The defeat ran Dreifort’s record to 0-6--his ERA is 6.21--and he said afterward, “You don’t want to walk anybody, let alone two guys. I’ve just got to keep working on things.”

Hernandez, who made a rare start behind the plate as Mike Piazza was rested, analyzed Dreifort’s difficulties by saying, “He was throwing too hard.”

Cory Snyder did all he could to re-tie the score in the eighth, but a combination of factors, among them his lack of speed, did him in. He doubled as a pinch-hitter for Henry Rodriguez and took third on Hernandez’s long fly, then was cut down at the plate when he tried to score on Phil Plantier’s bad throw.

“The throw hit me,” Snyder said. “Then when I went to get up, the third baseman (Craig Shipley) kind of fell on me. I probably should have stayed, but I heard Joey Amalfitano (third base coach) yelling, so I gave it a shot. If I hadn’t stumbled, I might have made it.”

Amalfitano said of his decision to send Snyder home, “Give the third baseman credit. He didn’t sit around and sign autographs. He got up and made the throw.”

Although Piazza was in effect given the day off, Manager Tom Lasorda found a perfect spot for him to pinch-hit in the ninth. Piazza got the call after Jose Offerman led off with a walk. But Trevor Hoffman fired a 90-plus m.p.h. fastball past Piazza for a called third strike.

Two outs later, the last-place Padres were within eight games of the first-place Dodgers in the National League West, and their main man, Tony Gwynn, saw that as reason for optimism.

“We’re heading in the right direction,” Gwynn said.