Piazza’s Ninth-Inning Homer Puts Dodgers Over the Top, 8-5 : Baseball: With the score tied and two runners on base, catcher drives first pitch from reliever Trevor Hoffman over the fence to defeat San Diego.

San Diego Padre outfielder Tony Gwynn watched in amazement as Dodger catcher Mike Piazza hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium during batting practice before Monday night’s game.

“I’ve been coming here for 13 years and nobody has come close to hitting a ball out of here and today I’ve seen three balls go out of here,” Gwynn said.

Piazza was merely getting warmed up.

He drilled the first pitch from relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman into the right-field bullpen for a three-run homer in the ninth inning as the Dodgers extended their winning streak to six consecutive games with an 8-5 victory before an announced 52,335.

“That was my first hit off the guy, as a matter of fact,” said Piazza, who has hit 22 first-pitch homers in his career. “He’s faced me the last couple of years, and he’s always been tough on me. But when I went up there I said to Eric [Karros], ‘Just kill me if I get cheated up there.’

“I didn’t want to get cheated. I wanted to get three good swings and get a good pitch to hit. Obviously, I just said to heck with it, I’m coming out aggressively and swinging the bat.”

The big crowd, which was attracted by a beach towel promotion, waved the towels in triumph after Piazza’s homer, which gave the Dodgers (31-26) sole possession of first place over the idle Colorado Rockies (30-26) in the National League West.

The Dodgers have hit 14 home runs in the last six games to go from last place to first place.

Piazza, who went two for four, scored two runs and drove in five, was mobbed by his teammates after hitting his 12th homer of the season. Piazza, who extended his hitting streak to six games, has homered in four of his last six games.

“I can’t say enough about our fans,” Piazza said. “They stayed and thankfully we played well.”

The Dodgers began their game-winning rally off reliever Brian Williams, who walked in the tying run with two outs in the eighth and opened the ninth by hitting Delino DeShields with a pitch. Williams left the game after walking Jose Offerman.

That brought in Hoffman, who had yielded four homers in 19 2/3 innings.

Trailing, 5-4, after Gwynn’s two-out homer in the top of the seventh off Dodger relief pitcher Pedro Astacio, the Dodgers tied it in the eighth when Williams delivered a two-out, bases-loaded walk to Billy Ashley.

But the Dodgers left the bases loaded when pinch-hitter Dave Hansen struck out.

Relief pitcher Todd Worrell, who has 12 saves in 12 opportunities, picked up his first victory of the season by pitching a perfect ninth inning.

Right fielder Raul Mondesi extended his hitting streak to a career-high 14 games with an eighth-inning single and Karros extended his hitting streak to five games with a fifth-inning run-scoring single.

Pitcher Willie Banks, acquired from the Chicago Cubs last week, made his first start as a Dodger.

Banks, who compiled a 15.43 earned-run average in 10 relief appearances for the Cubs this season, hoped to keep the Dodger winning streak alive.

But Banks, who hadn’t pitched in a game since June 6, gave up four runs on nine hits in five innings before he was lifted for pinch hitter Chris Gwynn as the Dodgers fell behind, 4-1.

But the Dodgers scored three runs in the fifth to tie it, 4-4.

Piazza drove in Tim Wallach, who’d led off the fifth with a single, and Chris Gwynn, who had walked, to cut the deficit to one run. Karros followed with an RBI single to right center to tie it.

The Padres have gotten off to a fast start to remain in contention in the NL West. They came into the contest only 1 1/2 games out of first.

“We’ve got a lot of young guys who really didn’t think we’d be in this situation and now all of a sudden they find themselves in this situation and it’s tough for them to believe,” Gwynn said. “Hey, we belong here. We’ve got a good club.

“I said we would be in the race. I said that all four teams were equal. The fact that here we are and the last-place team is three games out isn’t surprising because we’re just going to end up beating up on each other.”