Gonzalez is still a hit against Zito

SAN FRANCISCO -- Luis Gonzalez said he doesn’t know why he hits Barry Zito and he doesn’t care to find out.

Gonzalez belted a three-run home run in the first inning Saturday that provided the Dodgers with a lead they would never give up on their way to a 6-2 win at AT&T; Park.

Gonzalez, who turned 40 on Monday and has recently grumbled about his decreasing playing time, got a start in left field based on his history against Zito. Before the game, Gonzalez had been six for 12 against the Giants’ $126-million left-hander.

Gonzalez was one for four Saturday.

“There are just certain guys you see well or you feel comfortable out there,” Gonzalez said. “For me, he’s one of those guys. You don’t try to figure it out. You just know confidence-wise that he’s a guy you’ve hit well in the past.”

Gonzalez said he noticed Zito wasn’t sharp in the first inning, when he gave up a hit to Juan Pierre and walked Matt Kemp.

“The first couple hitters, he was struggling trying to get his breaking ball over,” Gonzalez said of Zito. “He threw me one on a 2-1 count to make it 3-1. He didn’t have a good curveball, so I was just sitting dead red and got a fastball down a left-hander’s happy zone.”

Gonzalez drove the ball into the deepest part of the park, clearing the wall in right-center field.

Gonzalez, who has been sharing the corner outfield positions with Kemp and Andre Ethier, started three of the Dodgers’ four games in their preceding series in Chicago. He was four for 10.

James Loney hit a home run Thursday and two more Friday, prompting Dodgers Manager Grady Little to say that the first baseman’s power might be underestimated.

“I don’t think it’s an aberration,” Little said of Loney’s recent power surge. “He hits the ball too hard. Anybody who hits the ball as hard as he does as consistently as he does, all the speculation about what kind of power hitter this guy’s going to be, we might be underestimating what he might be able to do.”

Loney is hitting .379 in eight games this month, up from the .244 he hit in August.

Of last month, Loney said, “There were times I wasn’t swinging at pitches I needed to be swinging at.”

Loney’s two-home run night forced Little to play him Saturday despite plans to start Shea Hillenbrand at first base because he was five for 11 against Zito. Little started Hillenbrand at third base instead.

Loney was one for four, but that hit was one of three the Dodgers had in their three-run ninth inning.

Nomar Garciaparra was hitless in four at-bats Friday night, but was encouraged by the way he swung the bat in his first game in 25 days.

“I barely missed some,” he said.

Among those “barely missed” pitches, he said, was one he hit to center field in the eighth inning on his final at-bat. Garciaparra said that he took extra batting practice over the last couple of weeks to make up for the lost time because of his strained calf.

But to Little, Garciaparra appeared to be pressing.

“He was anxious to get back in there and it looked like he was anxious to make things happen when he got to the plate,” Little said. “I’m sure he’ll get it going.”

Garciaparra sat out Saturday’s game but is expected back in the lineup today.

Garciaparra said his entire body was sore when he woke up Saturday morning, but that the soreness in his left calf wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com