‘We’re Back,’ Say Victorious Dodgers

It eventually was going to happen, the Dodgers kept telling themselves over and over.

They couldn’t stay this bad offensively, they kept telling themselves over and over.

They weren’t going to have three guys struggling to hit their weight the entire season, they kept telling themselves over and over.

Winning once again Friday night, 6-3, over the Philadelphia Phillies and defeating rookie pitching sensation Mike Grace, the Dodgers finally can say they believe it themselves.

The Dodgers (22-21) won their fourth consecutive game in front of a sellout of 54,304 at Dodger Stadium--the largest crowd of the season--and climbed above .500 for the first time since winning their season-opener.

“I think we’re back,” said right fielder Raul Mondesi, who hit a homer, and is batting .382 the last eight games. “I know I’m more confident now. I’m more relaxed.

“Sometimes we get too confident, but I think now we’re ready to play ball.”

Yes, much more important to the Dodgers than stringing together a few victories is the belief they finally have discovered their long-lost offense. They have scored 21 runs in the last three games, scoring five or more runs in three consecutive games the first time this season.

“You knew those guys wouldn’t be hitting like that the whole year,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “You knew they’d get better, it was just a matter of when.”

The Dodgers, valiantly trying to stave off doubts this season while falling 4 1/2 games behind the San Diego Padres, said the key to this offensive surge has been their pitching. The pitching has been their life preserver all along, with the Dodgers clinging on until offensive help arrived. Now, it has arrived.

“Hopefully, the worst is over,” third baseman Mike Blowers said. “I think we all believed it was a matter of time, but it gets frustrating not knowing when you’ll break out of it.

“Our pitching has been the thing that has held us together. The pitching has been so good it’s nice to give them a break for a change instead of having them pitch under all that constant pressure.”

Dodger starter Hideo Nomo (6-3) became the latest to benefit from this offensive swelling. He found himself trailing, 2-0, after the second inning, but before he knew it, his teammates scored six runs for him, allowing him to win despite a lackluster performance.

Nomo yielded eight hits and three earned runs in seven innings to win his fifth consecutive start at Dodger Stadium, but it was the offense that stole the show, handing Grace (6-1) his first defeat of the season.

“I think we all knew the offense would pick us up,” said Dodger closer Todd Worrell, who struck out Lenny Dykstra with two outs and two runners aboard in the ninth inning for his 10th save. “We just had to make sure we didn’t get frustrated in the meantime.

“But we knew that if we continued to pitch like we did, it would take the pressure off the offense.

“I think that’s what happened.”

The Dodgers, who didn’t take batting practice for the third consecutive day, and won’t again today, knocked Grace out of the game in the fifth inning. Grace was pounded for six hits and five earned runs in 4 2/3 innings, yielding home runs to Mike Piazza and Mondesi in the fourth inning. It was his shortest outing of the season.

The Dodgers, who couldn’t muster a hit off Grace, much less a run, in the first three innings, realized in the fourth inning that he was not the second coming of Don Drysdale. They broke out for three runs in the fourth, actually scored as many runs in one inning as Grace had yielded in his last four starts combined, spanning 31 innings.

It happened innocently enough when Grace walked Todd Hollandsworth on four pitches. That brought up Piazza, whose potential home run just drifted foul on a 2-2 pitch. No matter. Two pitches later he hit it just a few inches inside the right-field foul pole for a two-run homer.

Mondesi, emerging from his monthlong slump, followed Eric Karros’ groundout with a line-drive homer into left-field seats for his 10th homer of the season.

“The old Mondesi is back,” Mondesi said.

Nomo was unable to keep the lead in the top of the fifth when Jim Eisenreich hit a run-scoring single off shortstop Greg Gagne’s glove for a 3-3 tie. Worse, Gagne stumbled and sprained his left ankle on the play. He likely will sit out the remainder of the series.

Yet Grace couldn’t keep the Dodgers in check, and they blew the game open in the fifth on Roger Cedeno’s two-run single that scored Blowers and Chad Fonville.

“I don’t know if we’re going to go on a roll,” Karros said, “but we’re playing some good ball right now. We’re really playing well. We’ll find out whether we can keep it up.”