Astros Take Advantage of Dodger Slips : Baseball: Poor defense, weak offense again contribute to an L.A. loss.

The familiar, deadly one-two punch of loose defense and lousy offense pinned down the Dodgers again Monday night.

Behind effective pitching, the Houston Astros, beneficiaries of two key Dodger infield misplays, beat the slumping Dodgers, 3-1, before an announced Dodger Stadium crowd of 33,233.

Mike Hampton (5-3) won his third consecutive start, holding the Dodgers to one run on four hits over seven innings, and Todd Jones closed them out in the final two innings to earn his seventh save.

The Dodgers have scored only 13 runs in their last six games--seven of those coming in Ramon Martinez’s no-hitter Friday night.

“These guys are going to come around and start hitting the ball all over the place,” Dodger starter Willie Banks said. “Now that we’re not hitting, it’s like guys are kicking us when we’re down. Like this guy [Hampton], with this lineup, I don’t see him doing this to us any other day of the week.”

The loss left the Dodgers with an 8-14 record against left-handed starters, and dropped them five games behind the Colorado Rockies in the National League West.

For six innings, the Dodgers’ offensive inertia seemed to envelop the Astros, who lead the National League in runs scored but were unable to cash in on several early chances to score in bunches.

But in the seventh, Houston pushed across two runs, triggered by a shaky play by shortstop Jose Offerman that was ruled an infield single but easily could have been called an error.

Offerman didn’t aggressively charge a relatively hard-hit grounder off the bat of Hampton, then threw wildly and late to first.

Banks, pitching into the seventh for the first time this year, struck out Milt Thompson for the first out, but then hit Craig Biggio in the shoulder with a curveball to put runners at first and second.

With two strikes, Jeff Bagwell, who was 0 for 3 going into the at-bat, lifted a soft drive down the right-field line to score Hampton.

After Banks was replaced by Pedro Astacio, Astro clean-up hitter Derek Bell drove in Biggio with a deep sacrifice fly that sent left fielder Roberto Kelly to the wall.

Earlier, the Astros scored their first run in the third inning when second baseman Delino DeShields made an error on a routine groundball with two out, allowing Derrick May to score from third.

The late two-run lead looked especially large given the Dodgers’ struggles to score runs lately.

Banks, who began the game with an 0-2 record and a 9.47 earned-run average, flirted with danger, but pitched himself into and out of trouble through the early innings against an Astro team that had a .304 average in its last 19 games.

Banks, who hadn’t lasted longer than five innings in his previous three starts, gave up two runs, one earned, and seven hits in 6 1/3 innings Monday.

But the first three innings were all about DeShields. After three, the score was 1-1, and DeShields was responsible for both runs.

In the first, DeShields laced Hampton’s first pitch into the gap in right-center for a leadoff triple, and scored on Offerman’s line single to center.

The Dodgers went on to load the bases with two out in the inning, but Tim Wallach grounded into a fielder’s choice to end the inning.

But, with two out in the Astro half of the third inning, DeShields made his fifth error of the season and the Dodgers’ 69th.

Banks then walked Biggio and Bagwell to load the bases, but escaped further damage by getting Bell to ground into a fielder’s choice.

In the fourth, Banks gave up two singles and two walks, but did not surrender a run--a double play and an inning-ending strikeout of Thompson with the bases loaded squelched the rally.

To help Banks’ tight-wire act, Dodger center fielder Todd Hollandsworth, who made a running catch to protect Martinez’s no-hitter, continued to sparkle Monday.

With one out and a runner on first in the fifth inning, Hollandsworth saved at least one run when he snared a deep fly ball by Bell, sprinting to the warning track in front of the 395-foot sign.