Offense Trumps Blunders

The first baseman couldn’t flip a ball to the pitcher. The second baseman had a ground ball carom off his glove, and so did the third baseman. The pitcher needed 36 pitches to escape the first inning.

And that fake-to-third, throw-to-first pickoff play that never works? The right fielder fell for it.

All of that happened to your Dodgers during the first two innings of Sunday’s game. And they won, another indication that mediocrity again is the hallmark of the National League West.

The Dodgers did some things right, of course, in a 6-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Dodger Stadium. J.D. Drew homered and reached base three times, Bill Mueller doubled home two runs and started a key double play and Danys Baez earned his fifth save and maintained his 0.00 earned-run average.

But three weeks into the season, the Dodgers are 9-10 overall, 3-3 against the NL West. The five teams are bunched within 2 1/2 games of each other, no more than three games above or below .500.

“We’re fortunate nobody’s off to a real hot start,” pitcher Derek Lowe said. “You can’t play .500 baseball for six months and expect to have a chance.”

Except in last year’s NL West, where a team with a .500 record would have finished one game behind the champion San Diego Padres.

“It’s too early to figure us out,” Lowe said. “This winning one and losing one, that has to stop. We’re obviously trying to find a rhythm and go on a long winning streak. Luckily, we haven’t gone on a long losing streak.”

With first baseman Nomar Garciaparra and center fielder Kenny Lofton returning from the disabled list, Dodger players and executives hope that a winning streak will follow. But Garciaparra and Lofton had the day off Sunday, and the on-field result was far from championship caliber.

Dodger starter Brett Tomko almost exhausted himself in the first inning, throwing 36 pitches.

The Diamondbacks scored one run on what should have been the third out, when first baseman Olmedo Saenz fielded a ground ball and flipped the throw behind Tomko as the pitcher covered the base. They nearly scored four more, when Johnny Estrada’s bases-loaded fly ball died on the warning track.

“They let Tomko off the hook,” Dodger Manager Grady Little said. “They came up about 10 feet short of a grand slam.”

In the bottom of the inning, Drew almost ran the Dodgers out of a rally. With Jason Repko on third, Drew on first and one out, starter Russ Ortiz faked a pickoff throw to third, whirled and fired to first. Drew, who broke for second on the fake, was out on a play so seldom successful that fans boo when a pitcher appears to waste time trying it.

“I was trying to get too good of a jump,” Drew said. “He made the play work pretty good.”

That was about all Ortiz did well. The Dodgers still put up four runs in the first inning, on a double by Saenz, a two-run double by Mueller and a single by Ricky Ledee. Ortiz was gone in the second inning, after facing 13 batters -- four runs, four hits, five walks and five outs.

The Dodgers led for good, and Tomko somehow righted himself.

“After two innings, I looked up and I had 64 pitches,” he said. “It wasn’t the most efficient innings in a row.”

But he breezed through the next two innings in 17 pitches. He worked six innings, giving up one earned run and four hits on 114 pitches.

The Arizona pitchers gave up nine walks and eight hits and made 181 pitches in eight innings. But the Dodgers stranded 10, and so the Diamondbacks had the potential tying runs in scoring position in the eighth inning. The Dodger middle relievers faltered again, with Hong-Chih Kuo facing seven batters and walking three.

And so the Dodgers packed their bags and flew to Houston on Sunday night, not yet too concerned about their mediocrity.

“I couldn’t tell you our record on this homestand,” Mueller said.

That would be 4-5.

“There’s always room for improvement,” he said. “It’s a long year.”