It Seems Anyone Can Beat Dodgers

Kevin Brown hammered a shiny, new horseshoe over his cubicle in the Dodger clubhouse Saturday. Marquis Grissom took note, then eyed the well-worn shoe that hangs over his own stall.

“They keep away demons, evils and ills,” Grissom said.

Yeah, well, so much for that.

If the Dodgers were searching for luck, they left empty-handed in a 6-2 loss to the San Diego Padres.

The Padres plucked a still-wet-behind-the-ears Brian Lawrence from their bullpen, a pitcher who had never gone longer than 2 2/3 innings in his 11 career relief appearances. And he beat the Dodgers.

Of course, the Dodgers lent a hand, with four errors that led to three unearned runs, which left the 45,130 fans at Dodger Stadium a bit restless.

The Dodgers were booed for mistakes and for missed opportunities, three times they stranded runners in scoring position with less than two outs. But nothing, not even catcalls, could stir them from being spellbound by Lawrence, who gave up only two runs and four hits in 7 1/3 innings.

“We have to play a hell of a lot better than we did tonight,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “When you are playing clubs you have to beat, you have to beat them.”

There’s a first time for everything. Lawrence made his first major league start, picked up his first victory, had his first hit and drove in his first run.

Of course, beating the Dodgers these days isn’t necessarily the first step on the path to Cooperstown. This was their fifth loss in six games and left them closer to the last-place Padres than to first-place Arizona. The Dodgers are 7 1/2 games behind the Diamondbacks, their largest deficit this season.

“We’re really scuffling right now,” said outfielder Shawn Green, whose fourth-inning home was one of the few mistakes Lawrence made. “We’d like to get the ship sailing along before the All-Star break.”

That didn’t happen Saturday, as the Dodgers were bailing with both hands and still had that sinking feeling.

Lawrence exceeded all expectations in his first major league start. He struck out seven and walked only one.

“I think starting pitching fits me a little better than the bullpen,” Lawrence said.

The Dodgers would rather he stayed in the pen. Lawrence pitched calmly in stressful situations.

Paul Lo Duca roped a one-out double to left, scoring Gary Sheffield, who had walked to lead off the second inning, to tie the score, 1-1. Lawrence got Adrian Beltre and Alex Cora to ground out to get out of the inning.

Hiram Bocachica beat out an infield hit to start the sixth and went to second on Dave Hansen’s fly out. There he stayed, as the Dodger run-producers produced nothing.

Sheffield grounded out to Lawrence and Green struck out on a 3-2 pitch.

“His ball had a lot of movement on it,” Green said.

Tracy wasn’t ready to extend that much credit.

“We did nothing to put any pressure on them,” Tracy said. “We need to find a kind of knockout punch that hasn’t been there.”

The Dodgers sucker-punched themselves.

Mike Darr led off the fourth by lofting a routine fly ball to left. Sheffield camped under the ball, waited for it, and then dropped it for a two-base error. Ben Davis followed with a double, scoring Darr for a 2-1 Padre lead. Lawrence then lined a double into the left-field corner for his first major league hit and run batted in.

It was not the last gaffe that cost the Dodgers. Errors by Bocachica and Beltre led to an unearned run in the ninth.

“If you’re not doing anything offensively, all the mistakes are magnified,” Tracy said.

They also wasted was a solid outing by Luke Prokopec (6-4), who went seven innings, giving up only one earned run, but left with a blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand before the eighth.

“We have been hanging on for a while, the situation isn’t any different,” Tracy said. “We can’t pretend that it’s not there. We have to do something about it.”

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