Dodgers’ Lowe doesn’t lose his head in 7-2 loss

There was a bright side to the Dodgers’ 7-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night.

Derek Lowe’s head is still attached to his shoulders.

The Dodgers right-hander barely ducked under a wicked line drive off the bat of personal nemesis Brad Hawpe in the fifth inning. Lowe remained curled up on the ground for a long moment as if he’d heard an air-raid siren.

More likely, his ears were ringing from the ball zipping past his ear.

“He nearly got smoked with that ball,” said Manager Grady Little, who started for the mound to make a change even before his pitcher stood up.

Lowe didn’t quarrel. In fact, he couldn’t get off the mound fast enough, pulling his shirt out of his pants and unbuttoning it as he walked off the field with the Dodgers trailing, 5-2.

“That was the last straw Grady needed to see,” Lowe said.

All in all, he felt lucky all he lost was a game. He scraped his right arm on the ground when he hit the deck, but there was no lasting damage.

“Would it have hit me ... “ Lowe said, his voice trailing off. “On a ball like that, by the time you react, it’s already by you. I was very fortunate.”

The Dodgers (10-5) could afford a loss. They had won nine of their previous 11 games and were the first team to reach 10 victories. But the Rockies swung the bats well from beginning to end, finishing with 13 hits.

Lowe (2-2) pitched out of two-on, none-out jams in the first and second innings thanks to double plays, but the middle of the Rockies’ batting order knocked him around in the third for three runs and the fourth for two.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Matt Holliday doubled in the second and singled in the fourth, or that Lowe walked Hawpe twice before ducking under the single.

Holliday and Hawpe are a combined 23 for 41 against him.

“If you play 81 games in this park and can’t hit, you should quit,” Lowe said. “This is the only place in baseball where bad games don’t affect me at all. It’s a tough place to pitch.”

Yet the Dodgers couldn’t muster a comeback with a watered-down lineup that did not include Jeff Kent, Luis Gonzalez or Russell Martin. Little chose a night game at high altitude before today’s afternoon game to rest his two oldest players for the first time this season as well as his catcher.

Brady Clark had two of the Dodgers’ nine hits in place of Gonzalez, but backup catcher Mike Lieberthal was 0 for 4 batting cleanup. It didn’t matter that Rockies starter Rodrigo Lopez departed after four innings because of tightness in his elbow -- four relievers gave up only one run.

The Dodgers also were victimized by shaky defense and mental errors -- something out of character for a team that had been playing with confidence.

Shortstop Rafael Furcal’s relay throw was off line to home plate in the fifth, allowing Jamey Carroll to score from first, and Andre Ethier air-mailed a throw to the plate in the fourth, allowing a third run to score on Yorvit Torrealba’s bases-loaded single to right.

Lowe broke for first when the ball was hit because he thought Nomar Garciaparra might make a backhand play. When the ball went into the outfield, however, Lowe failed to change direction and back up home plate on Ethier’s throw.

“By design he’s supposed to head [to home plate], but that play was messed up from the get-go,” Little said.

After all that, the Dodgers considered it a victory to retreat to the hotel without anyone getting hurt.

Said Lowe: “I look forward to getting back to sea level.”

steve.henson@latimes.com