Dodgers Get Split Decision

The expanding cracks in a Dodger season taking a turn for the worse became painfully literal Wednesday night. Hideo Nomo split the nail on his right index finger during a 9-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park and probably will sit out at least his next turn in the rotation.

Nomo split the middle of his nail during a pitch in the second inning and exacerbated the injury on the next two pitches as the skin underneath the nail bed started to tear away and bleed. He had to leave after only 1 1/3 innings and was saddled with the loss after giving up two hits and one run.

Reliever Brian Falkenborg was rocked for five runs in the third inning as the Phillies extended the Dodgers’ season-high losing streak to six games. The Dodgers, who had a three-game lead May 12, and the San Diego Padres are tied for first place in the National League West.

Nomo said he had suffered cracks on the same nail previously without sitting out a start but acknowledged that this injury appeared more serious. Trainer Matt Wilson put Nomo’s finger in an antibiotic solution to disinfect the area, but said he doubted that Nomo could pitch in five days.

“Right now it’s so tender he’s not able to pick up a ball,” Wilson said. “Is it going to occur within the next five days? Doubtful.”

Falkenborg couldn’t pick up his teammate, surrendering a run-scoring single to the first batter he faced and walking pitcher Eric Milton on four pitches in the third before Marlon Byrd followed with a two-run single. With seven games remaining on this trip and characteristically wild Kazuhisa Ishii scheduled to pitch today, Manager Jim Tracy decided to stick with Falkenborg despite his struggles.

“I just lost focus for a little bit and got a little wild, and you can’t do that up here,” said Falkenborg, who walked three and gave up eight runs in 3 2/3 innings. “All you can do is learn from it and try and go out and work on some things mechanically and kind of refine things.”

Cesar Izturis hit a three-run homer for the Dodgers in the fourth, cutting the deficit to 6-3, but Pat Burrell responded in the bottom of the inning with his third homer of the last two games, a two-run shot to left-center field that put the Phillies back comfortably ahead.

The Dodgers squandered comeback opportunities in the sixth, when Paul Lo Duca grounded into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded, and in the eighth, when left fielder Burrell’s diving catch on a line drive by Milton Bradley cost the team at least one run.

“I’d say we’re in a little bit of a rut, but what club doesn’t get involved in something like that?” Tracy said. “They’re playing hard, they’re still doing the things that made us very successful. The main thing is we have to keep doing exactly what we’re doing and playing as hard as we’ve been playing and get ourselves out of it.”

Tracy said he liked the way Nomo pitched in his brief outing, noting that he appeared to have fixed some of the mechanical flaws that had plagued him during his last start, when he also lasted 1 1/3 innings. Nomo (3-5) retired four of the six batters he faced, striking out Bobby Abreu on a 77-mph split-fingered fastball in the first.

“It had the makings and began to look like it was going to be his best performance of the year,” Tracy said. “A lot of the questions we had, I really felt like several of them were going to get answered in a very positive way.”

Nomo said it was hard to tell whether he had made any improvements because he threw only 23 pitches, 17 for strikes. But the ace said things just don’t seem to be going his way during a season in which he has yet to throw more than six innings in nine starts.

“I am pretty frustrated,” he said through an interpreter. “Of course I would like to throw longer and help our team win in the games I’ve pitched, but so far we haven’t had too many of those.”

Izturis had three hits for the Dodgers, who amassed 12 hits but stranded 11 baserunners. Juan Encarnacion returned to the lineup after sitting out four games because of a sore left shoulder and drove in a run with a double in the seventh, but he flied out to right to end the game and drop his batting average to .228, lowest among the regulars.