Hometown Touch for Dodgers

The hometown and its hero shared a few moments together, perhaps for the last time. Eric Gagne received a standing ovation, with camera flashes popping from every direction and fans stomping their feet in creaky old Olympic Stadium.

And that was only when he walked toward the bullpen to warm up. As Gagne got into the game, and as he got the last three outs in the Dodgers’ 10-3 rout of the Montreal Expos on Thursday, the mutual affection between the crowd and the closer from Quebec was evident.

With the Expos expected to leave town after the season, Gagne might well have played his last major league game here. He could have kept the game ball, but he tossed it to a kid in the crowd above the Dodger dugout.

“It belongs to them,” he said. “It’s not my ball.”

The Dodgers’ cast of heroes extended beyond Gagne. Steve Finley homered and drove in four runs, Adrian Beltre hit his third home run in four days and 41st of the season -- tops in the majors -- and Jeff Weaver won his fifth consecutive decision.

Weaver, who tied Kazuhisa Ishii for the team lead with 12 victories, is 6-1 with a 2.77 earned-run average since the All-Star break. After he gave up a game-tying home run in the fifth inning to Montreal pitcher Livan Hernandez, who flamboyantly flipped his bat aside, the Dodgers scored seven runs in the sixth -- including two on bases-loaded walks by Hernandez.

“The baseball gods came back and got him the next inning,” Weaver said. “That was nice of them.”

That seven-run inning also included a two-run homer from Finley, rejuvenated since joining the Dodgers in a July 31 trade with the last-place Arizona Diamondbacks.

“It’s not wearing off,” Finley said. “That jolt won’t end, hopefully, until late in October.”

As the Dodgers maintained their four-game lead in the National League West, Finley maintained his crusade to uphold the reputation of General Manager Paul DePodesta. The trade of All-Star catcher Paul Lo Duca and setup man Guillermo Mota for now-injured pitcher Brad Penny and first baseman Hee-Seop Choi, hitting .190 as a Dodger, looks terrible right now.

But the trade for Finley looks terrific. He’s hitting .378 as a Dodger, driving in 20 runs in 23 games, and joining Beltre, Milton Bradley and Shawn Green in a formidable heart of the lineup. The Dodgers are averaging 5.4 runs since the break.

“I think people who continue to try to make an issue out of missing Mota are missing the point,” pitching coach Jim Colborn said. “It’s a different kind of team now. We win in a different kind of way.

“We struggled with the worst offense in baseball last year and won a whole lot of games. We did it with pitching, and the bullpen had a main responsibility.

“There’s a different mix now. We don’t have the worst offense. We don’t have to win games 3-2 and 2-1.”

Gagne, who gave up six runs and nine hits over three consecutive outings last week, pitched a hitless inning in his first appearance in six days. He walked one and struck out two.

“Just rest. Not too much video,” he said. “You have to have a fresh mind and a fresh body. I felt great. I felt like I was on vacation for six days.”

As the vacation ended, the Dodgers had their old closer back. With two out and two strikes, the crowd rose, cheering loudly for Gagne. The roar, he said, reminded him of his reception at Dodger Stadium.

“It was real special,” he said, “to get an ovation like that.”