Dodgers take it from the top

Rafael Furcal sat on a sofa in the Dodgers clubhouse Saturday afternoon, rubbing a bat with a piece of sandpaper.

“It’s for power,” he said.

Four hours later Furcal needed only one swing to prove the sandpaper worked, belting a first-inning home run that started the slumping Dodgers on their way to an 11-1 rout of the San Diego Padres, ending a four-game losing streak.

Power has been just about the only thing Furcal has lacked so far in a season in which he has played exceptional defense while ranking among the National League leaders in eight categories, including average (.405), on-base percentage (.510) and runs (11).

His teammates, however, haven’t been nearly as offensive, ranking near the bottom of the league in many of the same categories.

That all seemed to change with Furcal’s first home of the season, though, since it jump-started a Dodgers offense that scored as many runs in one night as it did in last weekend’s three-game series with the Padres in San Diego.

“Every time you lead off with a home run it gives you a little boost,” catcher Russell Martin said. “Raffy’s been swinging the bat extremely well. And he’s really been the catalyst for our offense. We followed the leader. We just have to keep doing that.”

By the time the night was over the Dodgers had followed Furcal to season highs for runs (11), homers (three) and hits (13), with James Loney and Andre Ethier collecting three hits each and Blake DeWitt adding two doubles.

Even the slumping Andruw Jones managed to reach base three times, scoring three runs, while pitcher Derek Lowe, who has never had more than four RBIs in a season, drove in three runs in six innings -- and knocked in another with a ground ball that was ruled an error.

By the time it was over, every starter had reached base at least once with eight of the nine contributing either a run or an RBI. Matt Kemp, who came into the game in the fifth, got one of each with a seventh-inning homer, his first this year.

“We have to take this game and realize that’s what we can do,” Martin said. “We’re very capable of scoring runs. It’s just a matter of getting going.”

Manager Joe Torre agreed.

“You know we were too good to continue not scoring runs,” he said. “When Furcal all of sudden tied the game up, it certainly put us in a better frame of mind.”

Power, however, was the one thing Torre said he wasn’t looking for when he wrote out a lineup card that had speedsters Furcal and Juan Pierre at the top of the order and Kemp on the bench for the second night in a row.

“I can’t concern myself with power right now,” Torre said. “We have to do more of making things happen. We’re not hitting. We haven’t been able to put things together.”

They’re putting things together now, having banged out 25 hits in the last two games.

Lowe (1-0), meanwhile, was as good on the mound as he was at the plate. After a rough first inning in which he gave up doubles to two of the first three hitters to fall behind, 1-0, he settled down to retire 15 in a row and 20 of the last 21 he faced in an economical 92-pitch outing. He gave up four hits, struck out six and didn’t walk a batter in eight innings.

“The big lead helped,” he said.

He was taking no credit for his two hits, however.

“Luck. Man, I have no idea,” he said. “Some days the breaks go your way . . . Just one of those days.”

The kind the Dodgers have seen too few of this season.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com