Surging Giants Hope Strawberry Haunts Dodgers : Baseball: San Francisco pulls within 1 1/2 games of L.A. atop the NL West going into three-game series.

The Dodgers released Darryl Strawberry to end a problem-plagued association.

Well, a sobered Strawberry is back and he’s still a problem for the Dodgers, who got their first look at the renewed slugger and the team he helped revive in Monday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants.

Strawberry, batting .310 with two home runs and 11 runs batted in since joining the Giants, has helped San Francisco surge back into contention in the NL West.

His July 7 arrival coincided with a 12-2 burst that carried the Giants within 1 1/2 games of the front-running Dodgers, losers of eight of their last 10.

What was a struggling Giant offense has come back to life. Barry Bonds and Matt Williams, the two players batting in front of Strawberry in the order, are batting a combined .343 with seven doubles, 13 home runs and 31 RBIs in the 12 games Strawberry has started heading into Monday night’s game.

“This the first time in a long time that I’m playing with a team that’s together,” Strawberry said as the Giants wound up a series with his first team, the New York Mets.

“There was no team chemistry with the Dodgers. We have it here now, just as the Mets used to have it when I played for them. What happened in L.A. happened and I don’t really want to get into it. Let’s just say things did not work out,” Strawberry said.

Far from a grudge match, Strawberry said his first game against the Dodgers as a member of the Giants was important because of its meaning in the standings.

“I’m now playing for the Giants and I do my job for the Giants,” Strawberry said.

He has declined to engage Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda in a war of words despite fresh criticism from his former manager, who earlier decried Strawberry’s drug relapse as a character weakness, not an illness.

“He let a lot of people down. He let himself down, he let his family down, he let his teammates down, he let the fans down,” Lasorda told New York Newsday.

“But I’ll tell you something: The guy he let down the most is the guy who paid him all that money,” Lasorda said, referring to Dodger owner Walter O’Malley.

Strawberry left New York for his hometown team in 1991, signing a five-year, $20.25-million deal. He had one productive season for the Dodgers before chronic back problems limited him to 75 games in 1992 and ’93.

During spring training, he failed to show up for an April 3 Dodger exhibition and five days later checked into the Betty Ford Center near Palm Springs to undergo drug rehabilitation treatment.

Strawberry was released by the Dodgers on May 25 after accepting a $4.8-million contract settlement.