Dreifort Embarrassed by Short Day’s Work

As one might expect, a $55-million contract raised the stakes for Darren Dreifort.

Dreifort wants to provide a big return on the Dodgers’ investment, but he failed to deliver again Thursday in a 13-9 trip-ending loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks before 32,658 at Bank One Ballpark.

The right-hander was chased after only two-plus innings, marking the shortest start of his career for performance reasons.

Dreifort (3-5) squandered leads of 3-0 in the first and 6-3 in the second, facing five batters and failing to record an out while the Diamondbacks took an 8-6 lead in a five-run third.

Dreifort took responsibility for a wasted opportunity.

“I’m pretty much embarrassed. . . . It’s a joke,” said Dreifort, coming off consecutive strong starts.

“This is not acceptable. It’s just not. Eight runs in two innings is unacceptable. We get six runs in the first two innings. I didn’t do my job. That’s it.”

Dreifort gave up five hits and walked four.

The Diamondbacks, who lead the National League West at 36-24, withstood another late charge from the second-place Dodgers (33-27), who pulled to within 10-9 in the sixth inning on Shawn Green’s two-run homer, his team-leading 16th.

But tired Dodger relievers gave up runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings, and the Diamondbacks have a three-game lead in the division. Miguel Bautista (4-3) worked three scoreless innings for the victory.

The eight earned runs charged to Dreifort marked the most in his career, boosting his earned-run average from 3.99 to 4.88.

“I felt pretty good. I felt like I was making pitches that needed to be made,” Dreifort said. “They were just hitting them where they needed to be hit.”

The performance was problematic for Manager Jim Tracy, whose rotation is in disarray because of injuries and ineffectiveness.

“That’s a tough one. You kind of feel like you let one slip away,” Tracy said. “It was very apparent early on that we were going to score runs, the big fella just didn’t have it.”

Tracy again went deep into the bullpen--using five pitchers--on a 3-4 trip that could have been much better after victories in the first two games of this series.

He used seven pitchers in Sunday’s 9-8, 10-inning victory over the Houston Astros, and Tuesday’s 6-5 victory over Arizona.

That’s not how Tracy had hoped to begin today’s three-game, interleague series against the Angels.

“It’s not something that I wanted to do,” Tracy said of using five pitchers in the final game of the trip. “It’s also a situation where, when you get your starter knocked out that early in the game, you have to do the best you can to piece it together.

“You just make sure you’re very protective of the number of pitches that guys throw. That’s exactly what we tried to do.

“Fortunately for us, it worked out OK. However, in looking at it for [today], there are a couple of guys [in the bullpen] that you’ll have to wait and see how they’re doing, as far as availability.”

The Dodgers staked Dreifort to a 3-0 lead against Diamondback rookie left-hander Nick Bierbrodt, who lasted only two innings in his major league debut.

Marquis Grissom hit his 13th homer--a two-run shot--in the first, and Jeff Reboulet had a two-run double in the second to help extend the lead to 6-3 after Erubiel Durazo’s three-run homer against Dreifort tied the score in the bottom of the first.

Dreifort retired the Diamondbacks in order in the second, but he walked Tony Womack and Junior Spivey to start the third.

Reggie Sanders’ two-run single through the middle tied the score, 6-6, and ended Dreifort’s work.

“We just didn’t get strikes,” catcher Chad Kreuter said. “We had what I thought was an extremely tight zone to start off that third inning to Womack.

“He threw three pitches in a row that were, in my opinion, strikes. From there, it just snowballed.”