It’s Not Dodgers’ or McGwire’s Day

Mark McGwire left in the third inning because of a tight left hamstring.

Scratch one single-season home run king.

J.D. Drew left in the third inning because of a strained left thumb.

Scratch one promising rookie outfielder.

Kent Bottenfield left in the sixth inning because of a strained muscle.

Scratch one starting pitcher.

So were the Dodgers able to pull out a victory against the depleted St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday at Dodger Stadium?

Scratch that idea.

The Cardinals still had enough left to hold off the Dodgers, 6-4, in front of a disappointed sellout crowd of 53,857 which saw neither a Dodger victory nor a McGwire home run.

The Dodgers again slipped below .500 at 9-10 in losing their fourth straight series.

And Manager Davey Johnson was again left trying to put a happy face on this sad start to a season that was begun with brimming optimism.

“It’s a good group out there,” he said. “It’s a long year and our time is yet to come.

“It takes a while to get everything going the way we want. We’ve got our work cut out for us. Nobody said it was going to be easy. Easy wouldn’t be any fun.”

The word fun hasn’t been in the Dodger vocabulary since the opening week of the season when the club soared to a 5-1 start. Since then, they are 4-9.

And the future doesn’t look any brighter. The Dodgers are 2-5 on the road, where they’ll be beginning Tuesday in Milwaukee where they open a nine-game trip.

The problems started early for the Dodgers on Sunday. Starting pitcher Darren Dreifort, who brought a 3-0 record along with a 3.63 earned-run average into the game, was in trouble by the time many of the fans were seated.

A line drive off the bat of Shawon Dunston went off Dreifort’s glove over to Adrian Beltre at third. Beltre scooped the ball up and threw wildly, allowing Dunston to get all the way to second.

With two out, up came Fernando Tatis, who had already made his mark for the ages in this series Friday night by hitting a major-league record two grand slams in one inning.

This time, Tatis had to settle for making a mark on the left-field wall, banging the ball off it for a long single to score Dunston.

When Eric Davis followed with his first homer of the season, it was 3-0 Cardinals.

In the St. Louis third, Davis, who came into the game hitting just .217 with six RBIs, drove another run home with a single.

But Davis, a Los Angeles native who played for the Dodgers in 1992 and part of 1993, shrugged off the significance of having a breakout game back home.

“Naa,” he said. “I’ve been through that. I’ve been here too long for that.”

Nor does he worry about his visibility on a team with names like McGwire and now, Tatis.

“I’m not concerned with the names on this team,” he said. “Wins and losses are the most important thing.”

When Dreifort failed to hold on to Eric Karros’ throw to first on a ground ball hit by Drew, Davis scored, boosting the Cardinals into a 5-0 lead.

They at least made it interesting.

Mark Grudzielanek’s second homer of the season in the fourth inning put the Dodgers on the scoreboard. Beltre’s RBI single in the fifth made the score 5-2.

Dunston extended the lead with a sixth-inning RBI single off Onan Masaoka that gave the Cardinals a little breathing room, but back the Dodgers came on Raul Mondesi’s seventh homer in the seventh inning. In the eighth, pinch-hitter Jacob Brumfield got all the way to third on a gift triple when Davis fell down while trying to catch Brumfield’s pop fly down the right-field line. Brumfield scored on a ground ball hit by Eric Young.

When the next two Dodgers got aboard, Mondesi came up for a key at-bat against Juan Acevedo.

But Acevedo got Mondesi on a ground ball to third and the Dodgers went meekly in the ninth.

Bottenfield improved to 4-0, Dreifort dropped to 3-1 and the Dodgers were left pondering a season that has turned from sweet to sour before April has turned to May.