Seeing Reds Doesn’t Pay for Dodgers : Baseball: With a weekend series at Cincinnati ahead, Los Angeles overlooks the Padres and loses, 5-2.

SAN DIEGO —  There were only 11,729 in the stands Monday night, their opponents were the fourth-place San Diego Padres, there was no pennant-race atmosphere and there were no red uniforms for miles.

Ever the proper guests, the Dodgers fell to the occasion.

Missing a chance to gain ground on the idle Cincinnati Reds, the Dodgers blew a 2-1 lead with a horrid seventh inning en route to a 5-2 loss to the Padres in San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium.

Thanks to a poor performance by reliever Tim Crews, mixed with a shaky defense, the Dodgers fell to six games behind the National League West-leading Reds with 21 remaining. They still have three games at Cincinnati this weekend, but if they aren’t more careful these next two nights in San Diego, those games could come too late.

“We have to think about the actual game we are playing and not think about the scoreboard or the games remaining or anything like that,” said Juan Samuel, whose first two-homer game in more than three years provided all of the Dodgers’ offense. “Time is the main thing right now.”

Samuel’s bat was needed considering the Dodgers played without Kirk Gibson and Kal Daniels. Gibson was nursing a bruised right forearm and Daniels was suffering from a sore lower back.

In committing three errors, giving them 14 in the last eight games, the Dodgers were shaky even before the Padres’ winning seventh inning. Mike Morgan allowed no earned runs in six innings, but the Padres had scored once on third baseman Mike Sharperson’s throwing error and Morgan had walked four and hit a batter.

Entering the seventh, the Padres had stranded 11 batters and were frustrated. Then Tim Crews replaced Morgan, and that frustration ended.

Against Crews, who entered with a 13 2/3-inning scoreless streak, Jack Clark began the inning with a walk. Joe Carter’s grounder forced Clark at second, but Carter wound up on third base a couple of pitches later after he stole second and kept running when catcher Rick Dempsey threw the ball into center field.

Benito Santiago walked, then Lynn singled to center to score Carter and move Santiago to second. Garry Templeton singled to left to load the bases for pitcher Dennis Rasmussen.

Phil Stephenson batted for Rasmussen and could only manage a grounder to second baseman Samuel. But Samuel and shortstop Alfredo Griffin could not turn the double play. Stephenson was safe and Santiago had scored with the eventual winning run.

The Padres added two in the eighth against rookie Darren Holmes, who kept up the bullpen’s bad streak by allowed first hitter Paul Faries to reach first on a strikeout, because of a wild pitch. Gwynn doubled to right and Faries scored on Hubie Brooks’ throwing error.

A grounder and an intentional walk later, Santiago’s fly ball scored the final run.

“We had them beat,” Manager Tom Lasorda said. “When two runs is all you get, you have to make the pitches.”

Somebody asked if the Dodgers also needed a tighter defense.

“You saw what happened out there,” he said.

The Dodgers had taken a 2-0 lead after four innings on two big swings from Samuel--each resulting in a home runs.

Samuel had not hit a homer since July 24. During that time, before Monday, Samuel had 18 hits in 89 at-bats for a .202 average that lowered his overall average to .213.

He had only eight homers and 36 runs batted, and only two two-homer games in his eight-year career, the most recent on July 1, 1987.

Samuel also entered the night with a .154 career average against Rasmussen, who gave up two runs on six hits in seven innings to improve to 10-13. Crews fell to 2-5. Morgan has won once since July 30, a span of nine starts.

“But they don’t mean anything,” Samuel said of the homers. “You don’t win, they mean nothing.”

The Padres actually didn’t deserve this much more than the Dodgers. They stranded 11 baserunners in the first six innings with abysmal at-bats. While much of the credit must go to Morgan, some of the blame belongs to a sluggish offense.

In the first inning, with runners on second and third and one out, Clark popped to third base and Carter grounded to shortstop.

In the second inning, with runners on second and third and two out, Bip Roberts struck out.

In the fourth, with runners on first and second and two out, Rasmussen, batting .288, struck out.

The fifth inning was the worst Padre inning, as five men reached base but only one scored. The inning featured Roberts, who led off with a double, being thrown out attempting to steal third after he stopped running on a hit-and-run before continuing to third base after batter Clark missed the pitch.

The Padres scored their first run in that inning, after the bases were loaded on two walks by Morgan and a throwing error by Sharperson. Santiago hit a grounder in the hole that glanced off Griffin’s glove as he attempted a backhand stab. The grounder was ruled a hit, and Gwynn scored from third to make the score 2-1.

Dodger Notes

X-rays of Kirk Gibson’s lower right arm showed no break. The deep bruise will be evaluated daily. Gibson was injured Sunday when he was hit by a pitch from Cincinnati’s Danny Jackson in the fifth inning. . . . Kal Daniels told trainers he probably aggravated his lower back while attempting a diving catch in the fifth inning Sunday. He went five for 22 during the home stand to lower his average to .283, although he has five home runs in his last 25 at-bats.

When Jose Gonzalez was told he was making only his 13th start of the year in place of Daniels, he was reminded of Manager Tom Lasorda’s comments that he started Juan Samuel last weekend because Lasorda had a dream. “To start me, Tommy must have had a bad dream,” Gonzalez said. . . . Orel Hershiser had his best rehabilitation day, making 75 tosses at up to 100 feet. Hershiser repeated that he would not throw batting practice before the end of the season, but said there was a chance he would throw off a mound. “Everything keeps going good, no setbacks yet,” Hershiser said.