It’s Another Bad Night for Dodgers in Atlanta

The Dodgers supposedly have been built to battle the powerful Atlanta Braves for the National League pennant.

At the moment, though, they’re battling to remain above .500.

The Braves again showed Friday night that the gap between the teams remains wide, posting a 4-2 victory at Turner Field.

The East Division-leading Braves continued to outplay the struggling Dodgers (24-23) before a crowd of 41,953, winning their eighth in a row over the Dodgers at Turner Field. Rookie left-hander Odalis Perez (3-2) baffled the Dodgers through 8 1/3 strong innings in only the eighth start of his career.

Perez was chased in the ninth after Raul Mondesi ended his shutout bid. Mondesi hit his league-leading 18th home run, a one-out, two-run shot to left field that cut the Braves’ lead in half.

Closer John Rocker then completed the Braves’ victory by striking out Eric Karros and Todd Hundley. Rocker earned his ninth save for the Braves (30-18), who typically played strong all-around baseball.

Dodger starter Darren Dreifort (5-3) struggled through five innings as the team dropped to 2-2 on its nine-game trip. The Dodgers are 1-3 against the Braves this season after going 1-8 last season.

Third baseman Adrian Beltre committed an error in the fifth that helped the Braves score twice to extend their lead to 4-0. Beltre is second among National League third baseman with 11 errors.

Atlanta continued a disturbing trend for the Dodgers, stealing two bases in two attempts against catcher Hundley. Hundley has thrown out only five runners in 46 attempts and rookie Angel Pena, his backup, is one for 10.

If the Braves are worried about the Dodgers, they aren’t showing it.

“To be honest about it [the Dodgers’ mediocre overall record], I’m really not surprised,” said Dodger left fielder Gary Sheffield, who went hitless in four at-bats. “I wouldn’t have thought we would be [one game above .500] this late but I didn’t think we would be much better.

“For us to start the way people expected us to start, we had to have everyone playing like they did in their best years. If everyone was having a year like their career years, then it would be different.

“But that’s not happening and we really haven’t jelled as a team. We still don’t know each other yet.”

Manager Davey Johnson added to the growing-pains theme.

“We’ve got some learning and growing to do,” he said. “But I still expect us to get it right.”

Johnson acknowledges the signs aren’t encouraging.

Perez began the game with a 5.54 earned-run average. He was pounded while losing in his previous start and believed he would soon be demoted to triple-A unless he had a big game.

Hello, Dodgers.

Perez, 20, kept the Dodgers off-balance by working the corners. Mondesi had three of the six hits against Perez, singling twice to center and hitting the homer that barely cleared the wall in left.

Perez struck out one and walked one while throwing 114 pitches, including 76 for strikes. He lowered his ERA to 4.94 while improving his chances to keep working at Turner Field.

“I thought that if I didn’t pitch a good game tonight,” he said, “they might have decided to keep [rookie left-hander] Bruce Chen on the team and send me to triple-A [when John Smoltz comes off the disabled list].”

Perez’s counterpart Friday wasn’t as fortunate.

The Braves took a 2-0 lead in the fourth against Dreifort on two run-scoring groundouts. Atlanta added two runs in the fifth on Beltre’s error on a grounder by Ryan Klesko.

Dreifort was removed for a pinch-hitter in the sixth with the Dodgers trailing, 4-0. He gave up five hits and four runs, three earned.

The right-hander struck out five and walked five while throwing 57 strikes in 99 pitches. His ERA is 5.02.

“Dreifort threw the ball pretty well but the other kid [Perez] was the story,” Johnson said. “We couldn’t advance to second on him. Mondy was the only one who seemed to have an idea.”