Gagne, Dodgers Bottom Out in 5-2 Loss to Giants

If someone had told Eric Gagne that he would hold the meat of the San Francisco Giant lineup--Barry Bonds, Jeff Kent and J.T. Snow--to a combined one for 12 Saturday, the Dodger starter would have liked his chances of winning.

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the bottom of the San Francisco lineup didn’t cooperate with the scenario and powered the Giants to a 5-2 victory in front of 45,705 at Dodger Stadium, ending the Dodgers’ three-game winning streak.

“If you look at it that way, then it’s good,” Gagne said of holding down the Giants’ 3-4-5 batters. “But there’s nine hitters over there. One bad pitch can hurt you, no matter who hits it.”

The Giants’ 6-7-8 batters--Rich Aurilia, Armando Rios and Bobby Estalella--were Gagne’s undoing, going a combined four for eight with three home runs.

“Actually, I didn’t think Eric threw the ball too bad. I thought he threw it pretty good,” Dodger Manager Davey Johnson said. “But you make a few mistakes and boom, three homers. You can’t make those mistakes.”

The first homer came with two out in the second inning.

Gagne had a 2-2 count on Aurilia after he thought he had struck him out on a check swing. One pitch later Aurilia hit a fastball into the left-field pavilion, his 10th home run of the season.

One batter later, Rios doubled into the right-field corner before Estalella hit a hanging curve on a 1-2 pitch just over the wall in left for his 10th home run of the season, giving the Giants a 3-0 lead.

The left-handed-hitting Rios made it 5-0 in the fourth when he hit a first-pitch offering from Gagne halfway up the pavilion in right field for his sixth homer, a two-run shot that scored Aurilia, who had walked.

“It was nice to pick up the rest of the guys today,” Estalella said.

Giant Manager Dusty Baker agreed.

“This was huge for us, especially after a tough loss last night [a 6-5 Dodger win on a three-run, eighth-inning homer by Eric Karros],” he said. “We’re not a mad team, we’re a determined team. It was important for us to score with the bottom of the lineup.”

Gagne (1-6) gave up five runs on six hits in five innings. He struck out five and walked one.

“I just can’t wait until I turn this thing around because I’m working my behind off,” said Gagne, who has also been mentioned in numerous trade talks. “It’s hard to find some progress in this. It’s real hard to swallow, especially when you’re in a [divisional] race.”

Livan Hernandez can empathize.

The Giant starter began the year 0-4, but Saturday he was pitching as if it were the 1997 postseason, when he was most valuable player of the National League championship series and World Series for the champion Florida Marlins.

Hernandez (9-7) picked up the win after going eight innings and giving up two runs on five hits. He struck out six and walked one while throwing 114 pitches, 69 strikes.

The Dodgers didn’t get to him until the eighth inning.

They had been held hitless by Hernandez for four-plus innings until Adrian Beltre singled to lead off the eighth. Kevin Elster followed with a one-out, two-run homer into the Dodger bullpen for his 11th home run of the season, No. 4 against the Giants.

Baker would have let Hernandez go for a complete game had it still been a shutout situation, but, the Giant manager said, “There were some dangerous dudes coming up.”

Namely, the heart of the Dodger lineup--Gary Sheffield, Karros and Shawn Green.

Giant closer Robb Nen walked Todd Hollandsworth to start the ninth before closing it out for his 22nd save.

Hernandez and Nen held the Dodgers’ 3-4-5 hitters to a combined 0 for 11, ending Sheffield’s 12-game hitting streak and Green’s six-game streak.

“Livan is a big-game pitcher,” said Sheffield, a teammate of Hernandez with the Marlins. “I never expected anything less from him. Today he showed exactly why.”

Elster said Hernandez kept the Dodger hitters off balance with off-speed pitches.

“He was mixing it up really well,” said Elster, who hit a Hernandez slider for his home run. “It seemed like he was more confident with his off-speed pitches, throwing those in fastball situations.”

With the loss, the third-place Dodgers (50-46) fell 3 1/2 games behind the second-place Giants (53-42) in the National League West and remained five games back of the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks, who lost, 7-3, to the Cincinnati Reds.

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Struggling Gagne

Dodger starter Eric Gagne is still winless against the National League this season, has not won since June 6 and has not gone past the sixth inning since May 1. A look at his last six starts:

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OPP. Dec. IP ER SO BB Tex. W 6 0 7 3 Oak. L 5 6 6 4 SD ND 6 3 2 3 SF ND 5 3 3 3 Sea. L 3 1/3 8 1 4 Pit. ND 6 3 3 3 SF L 5 5 5 1

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