Dodger Bats Take a Break

Brian Jordan lifted his bat slowly, holding it level to look at two spots a few inches apart and no more than 10 inches from the knob.

In each place was a small but unmistakable crack, souvenirs of his frustrating at-bats against rookie left-hander Carlos Hernandez in the Dodgers’ 6-1 loss to the Houston Astros on Saturday before a sun-drenched crowd of 30,626 at Dodger Stadium.

“He was running the cutter in on right-handers. He’s deceiving,” Jordan said of Hernandez (7-5), who limited the Dodgers to five hits over seven innings in his fourth start since shoulder soreness put him on the disabled list for six weeks.

“He doesn’t throw that hard, but he gets it up on you,” Jordan said. “He kept us off balance and was changing speeds. Today was his day. He deserved to win.”

And the Dodgers didn’t, not after pressuring Hernandez in the first inning and letting him wriggle out of a bases-loaded jam with only one run’s worth of damage. He allowed them few openings after that, permitting only two more runners to reach scoring position on a leadoff double by pinch-hitter Jolbert Cabrera in the fifth inning and a two-out double by Eric Karros in the sixth.

After throwing 48 pitches in the first two innings, Hernandez needed only 56 over the next five to stymie the Dodgers and keep the Astros on the fringes of the National League playoff race. The loss and the San Francisco Giants’ 4-3 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks cut the Dodgers’ cushion over the Giants in the wild-card race to two games--and added weight to Manager Jim Tracy’s proclamation that today is “the most important day of the season at this point in time.”

Then again, Saturday was no less important, but Hernandez turned it into a day of regret, keeping the Dodgers 4 1/2 games behind the West-leading Diamondbacks.

“He’s got good stuff,” Karros said of Hernandez. “The guy’s a good pitcher.... Every once in a while, you’re going to run into some good pitching outside of [Curt] Schilling and [Randy] Johnson.”

The Dodgers’ pitching Saturday was less than what the occasion demanded. To be fair, the loss was the first since July 15 for starter Omar Daal (11-7), who had four victories and four no-decisions in his previous eight starts and hadn’t given up more than two earned runs in any of those games.

But Daal’s pattern of struggling against the Astros--he’s 1-7 with a 6.59 earned-run average against Houston in his career--continued Saturday. He lasted 4 2/3 innings, his shortest outing since he went 3 2/3 innings in a 12-6 loss at St. Louis on July 7, and was tagged for four runs and nine hits.

Third baseman Mark Loretta accounted for three of those hits off Daal and four overall.

The key hit, though, was a two-out, two-run home run into the left-field seats in the fifth by Jeff Bagwell to give the Astros a 4-1 lead.

“That kind of put a damper on things and spiraled in the wrong direction,” said Tracy, whose team had won five of its previous six games.

“Obviously, today was one of those days. We didn’t get going offensively and they did offensive damage in the middle innings. When they put up runs like that, we dig a hole a little bit too deep for ourselves to climb out of.”

The Dodgers had jumped to a first-inning lead on a single by Paul Lo Duca, a walk to Adrian Beltre and a run-scoring single by Jordan. But the Astros rallied in the fourth, on RBI singles by Loretta and Gregg Zaun, and they pulled away in the fifth on Bagwell’s blast.

Houston added single runs in the sixth and seventh off Giovanni Carrara, while the Dodgers couldn’t get to Hernandez or Dave Mlicki. The top four hitters in the Dodgers’ lineup are a combined four for 43 over the last three games.

“I don’t really want to think about my shoulder anymore,” Hernandez said. “I just want to put the injury behind me and concentrate on doing my job to help the team. I want to have fun every time I go out there.”

With one game left in their series against Houston--and their streak of winning nine consecutive series on the line--the Dodgers had no time to dwell on Saturday’s defeat. They don’t have the luxury of looking ahead to the three-game series against the Giants that opens Monday at Pacific Bell Park.

“It’s important to win every series,” Jordan said. “You do that, and you have a chance to maintain and move on to [playing in] October.”