Beltre Gives L.A. a Positive Charge

Success has amounted to little more than a confidence game for Adrian Beltre during the portion of the season when he is usually flailing at pitches and watching his batting average plummet.

“I’m thinking positive this year,” Beltre said Saturday afternoon as he sat at his locker, several hours before the Dodgers played the Montreal Expos at Dodger Stadium. “Any time I go to the plate, I feel like I can get a hit.”

Beltre apparently was feeling it in the first and seventh innings, when he blasted solo home runs, and in the eighth, when he hit a run-scoring single through the right side of the infield to lift the Dodgers to a 5-4 come-from-behind victory in front of 52,900.

Beltre’s team-leading eighth and ninth homers and his 21st, 22nd and 23rd runs batted in helped the Dodgers overcome a second consecutive substandard start from Jose Lima, who needed 98 pitches to get through five innings in which he gave up seven hits and four runs.

The Dodger bullpen held the Expos scoreless the rest of the way, with closer Eric Gagne striking out the side in the ninth to record his seventh save, extending to 70 his major league record for consecutive saves dating to August 2002.

Beltre, who went three for five to lift his batting average to .367, lined an inside fastball from Montreal reliever Luis Ayala to right in the eighth to score Jason Grabowski from third with the winning run.

Grabowski had led off the inning with a pinch-hit double to right-center and went to third on Dave Roberts’ sacrifice bunt.

But after Cesar Izturis hit a comebacker to Ayala for the second out, it was up to Beltre, who delivered to improve the Dodgers’ record to 8-0 in one-run games.

“The two-out base hit he got, in cutting down his swing and disciplining himself to the fact that he’s going to take what the guy gives him and hit it hard, says a lot about the growth this young man is starting to show,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said.

Said a visibly relieved Lima: “That guy is incredible.”

The Dodgers won a second consecutive game for the first time in two weeks, ending a streak in which they had alternated wins and losses since winning five consecutive games from April 14-18. Considering their schedule -- series against the Colorado Rockies, San Francisco Giants, New York Mets and Expos, none of whom possess a winning record -- that had been somewhat exasperating.

The Dodgers had a chance to break the game open in the sixth, when, trailing 4-2, they loaded the bases with no one out. But they scored only once and would have been held scoreless if Montreal first baseman Brad Wilkerson could have plucked the ball cleanly out of his glove to start an inning-ending double play.

The Dodgers had loaded the bases when Juan Encarnacion and Robin Ventura hit consecutive singles and moved up a base when Alex Cora was hit by a pitch. However, pinch-hitter Jose Hernandez struck out swinging on what would have been ball four, and Roberts grounded to Wilkerson for what looked like the beginning of a 3-2-3 double play.

Wilkerson looked home but couldn’t get the ball out of his glove and had to settle for one out, tagging Roberts as he raced up the first base line while Encarnacion came home to pull the Dodgers within a run. Izturis then grounded out to Wilkerson to end the inning.

But Beltre tied the game in the seventh with his second homer off Montreal starter Livan Hernandez, this one just to the left of straightaway center. His homer in the first went to right-center.

Tracy indicated in spring training that this could be a breakthrough year for Beltre, whose struggles during the early months of the season typically overshadow his success after the All-Star break.

“Every year is supposed to be my breakthrough year,” Beltre said. “I don’t think about that. I just go out and give my best.”