Getting Lost on Way Home

Welcome home. Now get to work. The bills are due, the grass needs mowing and those annoying folks from down south are visiting for four days.

The Dodgers have no chance to relax after an emotionally draining 10-game trip, no time to feel sorry for themselves after blowing another lead and losing to the lowly Chicago Cubs, 6-5, Thursday at Wrigley Field.

The San Diego Padres begin a four-game series at Dodger Stadium tonight, trail the Dodgers by half a game in the National League West and have won six in a row and 11 of 14 against them this season.

Reliever Brett Tomko surrendered a lead for the third time on the trip, this time giving up four runs in the seventh inning -- the last three on a home run by Aramis Ramirez -- to wipe out a 5-2 Dodgers advantage and cloud the memory of another standout start by rookie Hong-Chih Kuo.

Cause for alarm?

“You try not to think about whether this will affect us in the next series,” second baseman Jeff Kent said. “You let this one go. It will be a tough grind against San Diego for four days. And it won’t end there.”

The Dodgers, who went 4-6 on the trip to Milwaukee, New York and Chicago and are 33-42 on the road this season, finish their last homestand with three-game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Arizona Diamondbacks. Then they complete the schedule at Colorado and San Francisco.

“Pittsburgh and Arizona, they want our blood too,” Kent said. “Then we’re on the road. It’s going to be a rough ride until the end.”

It’s hard to imagine a bumpier journey than the three-city odyssey that ended against the league’s worst team with the Dodgers blowing a seven-run lead in the series opener and wasting a two-run home run by Marlon Anderson and a three-run home run by J.D. Drew in the finale.

Tomko was in the center of the storm both times. The right-hander willingly moved to the bullpen in late July and pitched well until his last three appearances. He hadn’t bargained for such a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach. No relief, indeed.

“This is uncharted territory for me,” he said. “It’s a bad feeling to blow a lead late in the game, a different feeling than giving up runs as a starter. Everybody busts their butts for six innings, and in five minutes the game changes because of me.”

Manager Grady Little lifted Kuo after six innings and 93 pitches even though he had walked none and given up only two runs on a triple by Angel Pagan in the fourth. The sixth, in fact, was Kuo’s easiest inning.

“He gave us all we could expect from him,” Little said.

Tomko was summoned to face the bottom three batters in the Cubs order. He retired two of them, giving up a single to Ronny Cedeno on a hard ground ball that ate up Kent.

The top of the order came around and Tomko came unglued. Juan Pierre bunted for a single and Ryan Theriot singled to score Cedeno, cutting the Dodgers’ lead to 5-3. Ramirez, the Cubs’ home run leader, was up next and Little contemplated bringing in Jonathan Broxton, but remembered that two days earlier Broxton gave up a two-run single to Ramirez after replacing Tomko.

“So we went the other way this time,” Little said.

Ramirez drove a low fastball into the left-field bleachers for his 33rd home run.

The Dodgers went meekly against the last three of five Cubs relievers in the eighth and ninth. Cubs starter Wade Miller, pitching in only his second game since coming back from a serious shoulder injury, gave up one hit in five innings -- the home run by Anderson in the second.

It was official -- the Dodgers had wasted an opportunity to beat up on an opponent that began the series with a 57-87 record. Meanwhile, the Padres won two of three on the road against the Cincinnati Reds, a team still harboring playoff hopes.

“Before the road trip I said it didn’t matter if our opponents were in first place or last, and it turned out that way,” Kent said. “These games are grinders. We’re still in first place and that’s what matters.

“You live on an edge when you are trying to win a division. We have our work cut out for us.”

steve.henson@latimes.com