Dodgers Wasting Away in the West

Dodger Manager Jim Tracy took a jackhammer to his lineup Monday night, and his team responded to the shakeup with 13 hits, the most in 12 games since the All-Star break.

But a bend-but-don’t-break performance by San Diego pitcher Brian Lawrence and two phenomenal defensive plays by Padre left fielder Ron Gant--who, as Angel fans will recall, has butchered his share of balls in the outfield--left the Dodgers sifting through the rubble of a 5-2 loss to the Padres before 20,085 in Qualcomm Stadium.

Lawrence gave up two runs and 12 hits in 7 1/3 innings for his second win over the Dodgers in a week, and Gant threw out Mark Grudzielanek at home in the fifth inning and robbed Dave Roberts of a two-run triple--and possibly a game-tying inside-the-park home run--with a superb diving catch of Roberts’ liner toward the left-field corner to end the eighth.

Padre closer Trevor Hoffman retired the side in order in the ninth for his 24th save, sealing the Dodgers’ 11th loss in 13 games and dropping them 2 1/2 games behind Arizona in the National League West.

“We’re all frustrated,” Tracy said. “When you’ve done what we did to be in the position we’re in, it’s tougher every day to get beat, because you want to get on track. In this division, those other teams aren’t going to wait forever, so we have to get things going.”

The Dodgers thought they had done just that in the eighth inning Monday night, when Marquis Grissom’s pinch-hit RBI single off reliever Steve Reed cut San Diego’s lead to 5-2 and put runners on first and second.

Roberts sent a slicing drive to medium left near the line, but Gant raced over and hurled his body at it, extending his glove and making the catch just before he hit the turf.

“Man, will someone take the spell off us?” Dodger left fielder Brian Jordan said. “I can’t believe he even dove for that. If he misses that, it’s an inside-the-park home run. Unbelievable. But that’s how you win games, by being aggressive.”

And not by committing physical and mental errors or by going three for 17 with runners in scoring position, as the Dodgers did Monday night.

Third baseman Dave Hansen replaced the struggling Adrian Beltre and had three hits, but his two fourth-inning errors led to an unearned run that allowed the Padres to snap a tie on Wil Nieves’ RBI double.

And Dodger left-hander Odalis Perez, who gave up four runs--three earned--and eight hits in five innings to fall to 10-7, failed to cover first on Gant’s two-out chopper to the right side in the fifth. That enabled Phil Nevin, who had doubled, to score for a 3-1 lead and extended a rally that was capped by Deivi Cruz’s run-scoring infield single.

“We surrendered some runs tonight,” Tracy said. “Those are the kinds of things we’ve done well this season.”

Having scored 27 runs in the previous 11 games, an average of 2.5 a game, and gone a season-high five games without a home run, Tracy overhauled his lineup against Lawrence, the right-hander who has a 4-1 career record and 2.08 earned-run average against the Dodgers.

The objective: Add a left-handed bat against Lawrence, who had yielded a .285 average to left-handers and a .228 average to right-handers this season, and hopefully take some strain off a pitching staff that has been locked in numerous low-scoring close games since the All-Star break.

Grudzielanek, who had 12 hits in his previous 24 at-bats, moved from the bottom of the order to the two hole; Paul Lo Duca, mired in a one-for-19 slump, moved from second to cleanup; Mike Kinkade spelled Eric Karros at first, and the left-handed hitting Hansen replaced Beltre.

“I’m trying to get the offense going, and if we do that, I think the other areas will settle themselves,” Tracy said. “When you get one chance to score in a game, and it’s a meager amount, every pitch you throw could win or lose the game.”

Hansen advanced a runner with a grounder to the right side in the second and singled in his next three at-bats. Kinkade had two hits, including an RBI single in the second, and Grudzielanek had two hits. But the heart of the Dodger order continued to struggle.

In the last 12 games, Lo Duca, No. 3 hitter Shawn Green, Karros and Jordan have combined for six RBIs. The Dodgers put the leadoff runner on base in each of the first seven innings Monday night but could muster no more than two runs.

And on one of their hardest-hit balls of the night, Jordan’s single to left in the fifth, Gant threw out Grudzielanek at the plate.

“We’re a little snake-bit,” Tracy said. “We have to get the worm turned.”