Dodger Defeat High in Priority

Mark Prior is one of baseball’s most dominant young pitchers, his prowess evident in the three blazing fastballs -- clocked at 94, 95 and 95 mph -- the Chicago Cub right-hander used to strike out Jeromy Burnitz with runners on first and third to end the eighth inning Friday.

But the Dodgers were in no mood to bestow laurels upon Prior, even after the former USC pitcher threw his second complete game against them in six days to lead the Cubs to a 2-1 victory over the Dodgers before 40,188 in Wrigley Field.

The feeling in the Dodger clubhouse was that they let Prior off the hook. They had a runner on second with none out in the fourth and failed to advance him to third, and after Paul Lo Duca’s RBI single pulled the Dodgers to within 2-1 in the eighth, they had runners on first and third with one out and No. 3 hitter Shawn Green at the plate.

But Green, who had singled to center field in the first inning and blooped a double to left in the fourth, fouled off the first pitch and popped to shortstop on the second pitch, a curveball. Burnitz then fouled off a first-pitch fastball and swung at and missed the next two.

“After Lo Duca’s hit, we failed offensively,” Manager Jim Tracy said in one of his most harsh assessments this season of the Dodger offense, and particularly the underachieving Green. “The stage was set. We were in a good position.”

Instead, the Dodgers scored one run or fewer for the 31st time this season, a mark of futility matched by one of the worst teams in baseball history, the 1962 New York Mets, who went 40-120.

The Dodgers also lost ground in the National League wild-card race, falling five games behind the Philadelphia Phillies, who beat the St. Louis Cardinals later Friday. With the win, the Cubs moved into first place in the NL Central.

Prior, who threw a five-hitter with nine strikeouts and one walk in Sunday’s 3-1 win over the Dodgers, gave up seven hits Friday, struck out five and walked none to improve to 11-5 and lower his earned-run average to 2.65, fourth-best in the National League.

Cub right fielder Sammy Sosa, who has 18 homers and has knocked in 42 runs in 40 games since July 1, had three hits, including an RBI double in the first and an RBI single in the fifth, and second baseman Augie Ojeda snuffed out a potential rally by turning Adrian Beltre’s seventh-inning shot up the middle into a 4-6-3 double play.

Robin Ventura followed Beltre’s double play with a triple to right-center but was stranded when Alex Cora grounded to second. The Dodgers rallied in the eighth when pinch-hitter Mike Kinkade was hit by a pitch with one out and Dave Roberts singled.

Lo Duca singled to left on an 0-and-2 pitch to score Kinkade, and Roberts took third when Moises Alou bobbled Lo Duca’s hit. Chicago Manager Dusty Baker had left-hander Mike Remlinger warm in the bullpen, but he elected to stay with Prior, who rewarded his manager’s faith by retiring the left-handed Green and Burnitz.

“I should have hit the ball better, but I didn’t -- there’s not much more to it,” said Green, who is batting .270 with runners in scoring position. “I had a couple of pitches to hit. I fouled one off and popped the second one up. I wasn’t trying to pop it up. I was trying to hit it in the air.”

Burnitz had singled to right in his previous at-bat against Prior in the seventh inning, but he couldn’t catch up to Prior’s fastballs in the eighth.

“No doubt, he’s in the upper echelon as far as arm strength and velocity -- he throws hard,” Burnitz said of Prior. “But I got a good pitch to hit on the first one, and after that I helped him out. The next two pitches were high.... If you want to beat that guy you have to hit your pitch when you get one. You can’t foul them off.”

The Dodgers got a solid effort from Japanese right-hander Masao Kida, who overcame early nerves to go five innings, yielding two runs and five hits and striking out four, in his first big league start since 2000.

Kida, filling the rotation void created by Andy Ashby’s upper respiratory illness, showed poise when he struck out Hee Seop Choi with the bases loaded and two out in the third.

But Kida couldn’t handle Sosa, who followed Kenny Lofton’s first-inning single with an RBI double to the gap in left-center and followed Alex Gonzalez’s fifth-inning double with a two-out RBI single off the glove of the diving Beltre at third.

“Kida gave us a chance to steal a game in what appeared to be a pitching mismatch,” Tracy said. “To be in the position we were in, it was disappointing we didn’t get it done.”