Numbers Just Don’t Add Up for Dodgers

Jim Tracy was waxing philosophic Tuesday afternoon.

The National League West was the topic and the Dodger manager was trying his best to convince assembled media that his club could still win the division despite it being in third, six games behind first-place San Diego, and 11 games under .500 at the time.

“You shave one game off a week between now and the end of the season, you win,” he said.

It made mathematical sense. And after all, if the manager doesn’t believe, why should his team ... or its fans?

The race for the West was still on, he insisted, unless “somebody takes off and smokes your bacon.”

The Philadelphia Phillies torched the Dodger bullpen Tuesday night, turning a tight ballgame into an 8-4 laugher that lasted 3 1/2 hours at Dodger Stadium.

“It’s tough,” said Dodger starter Brad Penny, whose seven-inning, one-run performance was wasted. “You’ve got a lot of inexperience out there.”

Namely Dodger set-up man Steve Schmoll, a right-handed rookie who was charged with five runs in the eighth inning with the Dodgers clinging to a 2-1 lead with two out.

Schmoll gave up a combined 809 feet worth of home runs to consecutive hitters -- a three-run shot by Pat Burrell, his team-leading 22nd homer, and a solo homer to Ryan Howard, his seventh, that went 441 feet, more than halfway up the right-field pavilion.

“I just think back to my first and second year. It’s tough,” Penny said. “You’ve got to take the positives out of it ... he’s out there competing. He’s going to take his lumps, but he’s going to be pitching for a long time in this league.”

The power-pitching Penny was taken out by Tracy after throwing 107 pitches, giving up six hits, striking out four and walking one while experiencing success with a changeup.

“When [Tracy] told me I was done,” Penny said, “I was fine with it.”

Still, it was not as if the Dodgers did not have their chances early and often against Philadelphia rookie Robinson Tejeda, who was making his 10th career start after being called up in May.

But clean-up hitter Jeff Kent struck out four times, in four at-bats, and stranded six runners.

The Dodgers (50-62) fell seven games behind the Padres, who defeated the New York Mets while the Phillies (59-54) pulled within 1 1/2 games of the Houston Astros for the NL wild card.

The Dodgers, scuffling against Tejeda early, finally got to him in the fifth.

After Cesar Izturis led off with a walk, Oscar Robles singled to left center and Izturis advanced to third base.

Milton Bradley, batting from the left side, followed with a double down the third base line that just crossed over the bag, according to third base umpire Tony Randazzo, and scored Izturis.

With runners at second and third and none out, Kent went down swinging.

But Olmedo Saenz was able to bring Robles home with his ground-out to second and the Dodgers had a 2-0 lead.

The Phillies answered with one in the sixth when Kenny Lofton, who singled and stole second, scored on Bobby Abreu’s two-out single.

The Phillies stole two bases in the inning off rookie catcher Dioner Navarro, who was promoted from triple-A Las Vegas on July 29 to slow down opponents’ running games but entered Tuesday having thrown out one of eight base stealers.

After Penny’s exit, and Schmoll’s meltdown, Ricky Ledee, whom Tracy had said was unavailable because of a sore left hamstring, hit a two-out, two-run pinch-hit home run.

It was Ledee’s sixth homer of the season, his first as a pinch-hitter for the Dodgers.

The Phillies scored two runs in the ninth off rookie Jonathan Broxton.

That 12-2 start by the Dodgers, who have now lost two more games at home than they’ve won, seems so long ago, Tracy acknowledged.

“It was somewhat misleading to begin the year thinking that this was an .800 club,” he said.