Dodger Slide Is Becoming an Avalanche : Baseball: Never mind the All-Stars, team’s 8-0 loss to Cincinnati drops it fives games behind the Rockies as defensive flaws again are exposed.

The white stretch limousine pulled away Sunday afternoon, taking five Dodgers to the airport for their appointments at the All-Star game.

They’ll have more representatives at the All-Star game than any team in the National League, and considering first baseman Eric Karros’ year, it could have easily been half a dozen.

Yet, when the Dodgers left the visitors’ clubhouse for their annual All-Star break, there was an empty feeling.

While the Dodgers may have the finest collection of individual talent in the National League, the excruciating truth is that they are not even a .500 club.

The Dodgers were shelled, 8-0, by the Cincinnati Reds in front of a paid crowd of 29,589 at Riverfront Stadium, falling to a season-high five games behind the Colorado Rockies.

“We’re having all these great seasons and we’re supposed to be happy that we’re one game under .500 (34-35)?” Karros said. “Yeah, that’s great. Wow. Super.

“If guys are excited about the way they’ve played, they better look in the mirror.

“You can keep talking about all of the talent and potential we have, but if we’re still talking about potential and talent in August and September, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble.

“Whether we want to admit it or not, the bottom line is that we’re not even a .500 team. That’s the reality.”

This is a team that two weeks ago was making playoff plans, boasting it can play with any team in either league. That, of course, is when it got caught up in the euphoria of winning six consecutive games.

The Dodgers have lost nine of 12 games, including six of the last seven, and are mired in their worst slump of the season. They’ve scored only 12 runs in those nine defeats, and on Sunday were shut out for the ninth time, the most of any team in the major leagues.

Considering this is a team that has the league’s second-ranked pitching staff, a closer with a 0.32 earned-run average, four regulars batting higher than .300, and three players who have hit at least 13 homers, could this be the league’s biggest collection of underachievers?

“I don’t think you can say that, because this club has never proven anything,” Karros said. “What have we ever achieved? We haven’t won a division. We haven’t won a pennant. We’ve never been to the World Series.

“We might be waiting four years for this team to develop, I don’t know. I’m not saying it’s time to panic, but look at us.

“We don’t execute and our defense stinks. It’s not just bad, it stinks. You can’t hide it.

“The thing about it too, is that it’s not just the errors, but the plays we should make and don’t make.

“I mean, we can’t catch the ball.”

Indeed, even as Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda points out, the bad news is that the Dodgers have made more errors than any team in the major leagues. The good news is that you can’t charge an error for lack of range and execution.

“Even if you have Koufax, Drysdale, Marichal and Gibson on your pitching staff,” Lasorda said, “if they give up four or five outs an inning, they’re not going to win.

“I’m not going to make any excuses. We’re last in defense and I know that. And I’m not going to cover it up. We’ve got to catch the ball.”

Those defensive woes were evident Sunday when they made two more errors, including shortstop Jose Offerman’s league-leading 20th, and allowed balls to fall into the outfield, and slip by in the infield.

Then again, no defense could have rescued Dodger starter Ismael Valdes (5-5), who yielded 10 hits in 3 2/3 innings in his third consecutive loss. The Reds knocked Valdes out of the game after producing five extra-base hits in the third and fourth innings alone, leaving Valdes with the worst outing of his major league career.

“We’re proving that just because we have a lot of great individuals,” Dodger catcher Mike Piazza said, “doesn’t mean you win as a team.

“We’d like to think we’d do better in the second half. I mean, we should.

“But who knows, there are some teams who never play the way they should.”

Said starter Tom Candiotti, perhaps revealing the Dodgers’ innermost fears: “When we left spring training, the three biggest questions were, ‘Who’s going to replace [Orel] Hershiser and [Kevin] Gross, and who’s going to be closing? Well, we answer all three with [Hideo] Nomo, Valdes and Todd [Worrell], and we’re still struggling.

“You look at this team, and we should take off. We’re better than the Giants. And we’re better than the Rockies and Padres. We’re just not showing it.

“This shouldn’t be happening.”