Punchless Dodgers Fall to Padres

It’s only April 16, but it’s not too early to start thinking about the wild card if you’re the Dodgers, who can’t seem to muster up enough offense to win a game.

The Dodgers showed some life Tuesday night, ending a 15-inning scoreless streak with runs in the seventh and eighth innings, but they still lost to the San Diego Padres, 3-2, before 25,903 in Dodger Stadium, extending their losing streak to four.

Two weeks into the season, a team many felt was good enough to win the National League West, a sentiment shared by many in the Dodger clubhouse, is already eight games behind the San Francisco Giants, the first time since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958 they’ve had an eight-game April deficit.

There’s a bright side; the Dodgers are only four games behind Philadelphia and Colorado in the wild-card race with 148 games to go.

But with Dodger silencer Brian Lawrence pitching for the Padres tonight and three more games against the Giants this weekend, the outlook in the short term appears grim. Not grim enough for General Manager Dan Evans to start shredding the blueprint, though.

“If we were getting smoked, and our pitching was in disarray, and our fielding was breaking down and our bullpen was short-handed, then there would be questions,” Evans said. “But we’ve been in every game we’ve played.

“This is the same team we all liked 10 days ago and still like. You weather the storm during periods like this and continue to rely on your strength, which is clearly pitching. You can’t take a brief segment of the season this early and overreact to it. I have a lot of confidence in this club.”

Evans would have more confidence in the Dodgers if they could produce some more clutch hits and run the bases more effectively. After Dave Roberts and Paul Lo Duca drew one-out walks in the ninth inning Tuesday night, Shawn Green swung at reliever Jaret Wright’s first pitch, shattering his bat and popping out to the catcher.

Green has two hits and seven strikeouts in 21 at-bats against San Diego this season. Cleanup batter Brian Jordan followed with a pop to first to end the game, the Dodgers’ fourth one-run loss in a row.

“We had chances offensively and couldn’t come up with the big hit,” Manager Jim Tracy said. “I feel like I’ve been making the same statements to the media night after night after night.”

The Dodgers scored on Jolbert Cabrera’s sacrifice fly in the seventh and Jordan’s RBI single in the eighth, pulling to within 3-2, but failed to score despite a three-hit sixth. The culprit: Cabrera, who stopped between second and third on Roberts’ single to right and was tagged out in a rundown by third baseman Sean Burroughs.

Cabrera was running from first on a full-count pitch and thought he’d advance to third, but Roberts hit the ball so hard and right fielder Xavier Nady made such an aggressive approach and throw, Cabrera had no chance.

“I made a mistake -- I should have picked up [third-base coach Glenn Hoffman] a little quicker,” Cabrera said. “He had his left hand up for stop. You never assume the ball is going to be hit that hard, and I forgot they play [Roberts] shallow. I shouldn’t have tried to go to third, but I was trying to stay aggressive.”

The Dodgers have scored nine runs in their last four games, but they couldn’t pin their struggles on Adrian Beltre on Tuesday: The underachieving third baseman did not play, and Tracy said he will bench Beltre again tonight.

Beltre is off to another disappointing start, hitting .204 with two home runs, four runs batted in, two walks and 11 strikeouts in 49 at-bats. He’s hitting .111 (one for nine) against left-handers and .100 (one for 10) with runners in scoring position,

“We want him to take a couple of days,” Tracy said, “give him an opportunity to sort things out.”

Beltre seemed comfortable with Tuesday night’s environment.

“It will help to have a couple of days off to work on my swing,” Beltre said. “I think that will be better for me ... I can forget about everything that’s happened so far.”