Lineup Is Wasting Away Again

The Green Machine in working order Sunday afternoon at Turner Field was the one with the tomahawk on his jersey who had spent the first six weeks of the season in the minor leagues.

Shawn Green, two-time All-Star and onetime feared slugger, was unrecognizable to even his manager after flailing wildly at three consecutive John Smoltz split-fingered fastballs in the ninth inning, ending a 5-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves that sent the Dodgers to their ninth defeat in 10 games.

“That’s not Shawn Green,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said bluntly. “That’s not Shawn Green-type stuff, not what I’ve been accustomed to seeing.”

Even though Green had two hits and drove in the Dodgers’ run with a seventh-inning bad-hop single, Tracy said he saw “very little” progress from his struggling first baseman, who had talked his way back into the lineup a day after being benched for the first time this season.

By contrast, things couldn’t have gone much better for Nick Green, the Atlanta second baseman who drove in two runs -- one on a bloop single behind second base -- and is batting .360 in eight major league games.

Nick Green & Co. won despite being outhit, 13-10, and finding themselves in a precarious position in nearly every other inning. Of course, it helps when you have Andruw Jones in center field and the opposition goes two for 14 with runners in scoring position.

The Dodgers loaded the bases in the fifth, only to watch pitcher Mike Hampton glove Adrian Beltre’s low line drive and throw to first for a double play. The Dodgers put runners on first and second with nobody out in the sixth, only to watch Jones prevent two runs by making a diving catch of Jose Hernandez’s drive into the left-center gap. The Dodgers had two runners on and one out in the eighth, only to watch pinch-hitter Jason Grabowski hit into a double play.

“A lot of guys hit the ball hard, just right at somebody,” Beltre said.

The Braves were also hitting the ball hard at somebody -- in the outfield seats.

Hampton hit a fastball for a solo homer in the fourth and Chipper Jones hit a changeup for a two-run homer in the fifth off Wilson Alvarez (2-1), who has been hit hard in back-to-back starts for the first time as a Dodger.

Alvarez had trouble throwing his changeup for a strike, allowing the Braves to sit on his fastball. The left-hander gave up seven hits and five runs in five innings, striking out six and walking three.

“Last time I was throwing strikes,” Alvarez said, referring to a start in Philadelphia on Tuesday in which he allowed four homers. “Today, I can’t throw a strike.

“A breakdown is going to happen, so just keep fighting. I’ve just got to keep these two games behind me and just keep going. If I carry it over, it’s going to get worse.”

The Dodger offense has averaged 2.6 runs in its last 10 games. The Dodgers tagged Hampton (1-5) for nine hits in six innings Sunday, but the closest they came to scoring was when Paul Lo Duca rounded third base on Beltre’s third-inning single only to be thrown out at the plate by left fielder Chipper Jones.

“You create that many opportunities for yourselves, at some point in time you’re hopeful to break through,” Tracy said. “Some of the at-bats that we took in some of those situations were good at-bats.

“The way we will get it done is to continue to put people on base like we have been and get some at-bats in situations like we were through the first 32 games of the season and come up with the big hit. That’s something offensively that right now is definitely eluding us.”

Tracy said he put Green back in the lineup after a morning conversation in which the first baseman “made me feel very strongly that he wasn’t interested in another day off.”

Batting fifth for his second consecutive game, Green benefited from a little luck when his seventh-inning chopper took a wild hop off the infield dirt to elude Nick Green and bring home Milton Bradley from third.

Green, informed of Tracy’s comments, said he was satisfied with his performance even though Smoltz fooled him during his final at-bat.

“I had a couple of hits today, so I’m happy with it,” said Green, who went two for five to raise his batting average to .225. “I’m going to build off that.”