Dodgers Take Show on Road

The Dodgers briefly celebrated after Shawn Green’s run-scoring single in the 11th inning Thursday helped them end a disappointing home stand with a 1-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

Alex Cora led off with a sharp single to center, advanced to second on Jolbert Cabrera’s sacrifice bunt and crossed the plate when Green singled up the middle against left-hander Javier Lopez (2-1) before what remained of a crowd of 33,144 at Dodger Stadium.

Green was mobbed by teammates after his one-out game-winner gave Paul Shuey (4-2) the victory in a one-third-inning outing, and the Dodgers expressed relief after evening their home stand record to 4-4.

Then they refocused on the challenge ahead.

The Dodgers tonight begin a 10-day, nine-game trip against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies and Atlanta Braves.

“I won’t shy away from the fact that it’s important,” Manager Jim Tracy said. “It’s obviously important.”

With the Dodgers (53-48) floundering 11 1/2 games behind the surging first-place San Francisco Giants in the National League West, players have lowered their sights on a more realistic goal: earning the NL wild-card berth.

But this won’t be an easy trip. The second-place Diamondbacks are half a game ahead of the Dodgers in the division, the Phillies are leading the NL wild-card pack, 4 1/2 games ahead of the Dodgers, and the Braves have the major leagues’ best record.

“As bad as things have been going ... this is a big trip for us. It’s a real big trip,” said Green, who had two of the Dodgers’ six hits.

“If we have a bad trip, it would be really hard to dig out of that kind of a hole. Regardless of whether it’s the wild card or the division, we can’t afford to get any further back than we are right now. It’s pretty simple.”

The Dodgers are 18-28 against NL West opponents. The have a losing record against every team except the Diamondbacks (5-4) and will face five-time Cy Young award winner Randy Johnson and co-ace Curt Schilling in the three-game series that starts tonight at Bank One Ballpark.

The Giants just swept the Diamondbacks at Pacific Bell Park, and Arizona has dropped six in a row. But overconfidence is not among the Dodgers’ many problems.

“Their two big guys [Johnson and Schilling] are back and we’re facing them, so that’s never easy,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “You’d like to get off to a good start, but you know they’re always tough, especially [at Bank One Ballpark].

“I don’t know how many victories we need, I don’t know what the numbers are, but you need to have an awfully good trip. Whether you go 5-4, 6-3, 7-2 ... hopefully you could go 9-0. The bottom line is, you need a winning road trip.”

The Dodgers hope they started something positive Thursday in outlasting the fourth-place Rockies (52-53), one of the major leagues’ worst road teams at 17-37.

However, they again failed to deliver for ace Kevin Brown.

The right-hander had losses in his previous four starts, although he had only one poor performance in that stretch.

Brown gave up only three singles in eight scoreless innings, but Colorado starter Shawn Chacon befuddled the Dodgers in seven shutout innings. Brown left the clubhouse before speaking with reporters.

“Brownie and Chacon were both throwing great today, so it was good to just be able to push across a run,” Lo Duca said. “I don’t care how we won, just as long as we won with what we’ve got coming up.”

That was definitely the mood in the clubhouse.

“The main thing was to end this home stand on a positive note,” said Cora, who also had two hits batting leadoff.

“We know who we’re playing now, but we can’t control what the Phillies are doing and what the [Florida] Marlins are doing [in the NL wild-card race]. There are so many teams in this thing, and we’ve got to focus on what we’re doing.”