Dodgers are not kidding about this

Andy LaRoche and Chin-lung Hu on the infield. Delwyn Young, Matt Kemp and Juan Pierre in the outfield. Russell Martin behind the plate. James Loney batting cleanup.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to your 2008 Los Angeles Dodgers.

Although Manager Grady Little refused to call the lineup he sent against the Colorado Rockies on Thursday a preview of coming attractions, he left little doubt many of those players have a chance to pick up next season where they’re ending this one.

“We know the course we’re on and we’re going to stay the course,” Little said of the Dodgers’ commitment to youth. “The course they’ve been taking since they won a World Series here in 1988 is not working. This course we’re on right now, we’re going to try to make it work.”

The future didn’t get off to a good start Thursday with Garrett Atkins and Brad Hawpe combining to go seven for nine with back-to-back home runs and six runs batted in to spark Colorado to its 11th consecutive victory, a 10-4 win before 51,999 at Dodger Stadium. That kept the Rockies a game off the pace in a crowded National League wild-card race.

For the Dodgers, the loss was their 10th in 11 games, leaving them needing two victories in their season-ending three-game series with San Francisco to finish with a winning record.

“These players are getting opportunities,” Little said. “They’re getting an opportunity to show us what they can do. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the lineup we’re leaving next spring training with.”

But it doesn’t mean it’s not either.

Six of Thursday’s nine starters were 25 or younger; in April’s season opener, six of the nine starters were 33 or older. It’s a transition Little likened to one the Dodgers underwent in the early 1970s, when a similar youth movement set the foundation for five league titles, seven division championships and two World Series crowns over a 14-year period -- ending in 1988.

“During that period of time, I don’t think there’s been such a major influx of younger players onto a ballclub at one time as we have right now,” Little said.

Only one of Thursday’s starters, 35-year-old pitcher Esteban Loaiza, was out of grade school the last time the Dodgers won it all. The franchise hasn’t seen a team get past the first round of the playoffs since.

“It happens,” Little said of a turnaround. “But you’ve got to make it happen. When you look at our ballclub, there are some fans on the East Coast that don’t even know some of these players. But they will.”

Like Loney, for example, whose three RBIs Thursday gave him a big league-best 31 for September, the fourth-best one-month total for a Dodger in five decades. Or Kemp, whose two hits raised his average to .333. If that doesn’t slip over the weekend, he’ll finish with the eighth-best single-season average since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles.

“I know they gained a lot of experience,” Little said of the Dodgers’ youngsters. “And I think that experience can do nothing but help them.”

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com