Dodgers lose, now turn to Wells

NEW YORK -- The Dodgers brought David Wells in to give them a lift in a tight playoff race. But when the 44-year-old left-hander takes the mound tonight, he’ll be trying to stop their free-fall instead.

Because after the Dodgers rolled over for the New York Mets for a second consecutive game Saturday, Wells’ debut is all that stands between the club and a third consecutive losing trip.

And pitching, ironically, is no longer the problem. Hitting is, with Orlando Hernandez baffling the Dodgers through seven innings in a 4-3 win.

But was Hernandez that good or were the Dodgers that bad?

In two games in New York, the Dodgers have scored five runs -- one more than they scored in their last three at-bats in Philadelphia, where they started the trip.

As a result, the first-place Mets have extended their lead in the National League East while the Dodgers have lost ground in the wild-card race.

And Dodgers Manager Grady Little says there’s a strong correlation between those two facts and the two teams’ approaches at the plate.

“I sit there and I watch at-bats with our ballclub in key spots and then I watch the other ballclub when they come to the plate to hit,” he said. “Our approach in those situations is not as good as we see across the way. And that’s the difference in winning and losing one- and two-run games.

“We’ve got to be better at it if we expect to have success. We’ve got to execute in situations like that better than we have.”

That was kind of a moot point Saturday since the Dodgers’ offense consisted mainly of two swings in the seventh inning and a bizarre -- and ultimately unsuccessful try -- by right fielder Lastings Milledge to catch Shea Hillenbrand’s pop fly in the eighth.

The two swings, by Luis Gonzalez and Russell Martin, produced consecutive homers against Hernandez (9-4) and Hillenbrand’s routine fly dropped untouched near a madly circling Milledge for a triple. Hillenbrand scored three pitches later on Mark Sweeney’s groundout.

And that was it. The Dodgers got only six other runners on base and two of them were thrown out trying to steal while two others were erased on double plays, including one Gonzalez hit into to end the game with the tying run on base.

But even at that Gonzalez, whose homer was his first since July 18, wasn’t necessarily buying his manager’s rebuke.

“I’ve been playing 17 years up here. I’ve gone up with the same mentality since day one,” he said. “Every player’s different. [The Mets] are all different players. We’re all different players.

“That’s basically it. We’re just not getting hits when we need to.”

Still, the few hits the Dodgers did get Saturday almost proved to be enough.

After a rocky first inning in which he walked the bases loaded, rookie Eric Stults (1-2) rebounded to keep it a 1-0 game into the fifth when, with two outs and first base open, Little ordered the left-hander to walk Jeff Conine and pitch to the left-handed-hitting Carlos Delgado.

Delgado responded by slapping Stults’ first pitch up the middle for a two-run single, ending an 0-for-19 drought.

“If I was the manager, I would have done the same thing,” Delgado said of walking Conine to get to him.

Of course, if Delgado were managing against the Dodgers, there’s probably little chance he’d face a situation where their offense was threatening.

Still, at least one Dodger found a lesson in Delgado’s ability to forget the past and erase a week’s worth of struggles on one pitch.

“This is crunch time,” Hillenbrand said. “You need to go out there each and every night and try to win every game. You really can’t deal with what’s been done in the past.”

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com