Dodgers Waste Powerful Effort

PITTSBURGH —  The Dodgers say they must be successful on their current trip to remain in contention for the National League wild-card berth.

They acknowledge that time is running out, and things need to change quickly. But they’re still searching for answers.

The befuddled Dodgers squandered an early lead and lost to the Pirates, 6-4, Tuesday night before a crowd of 12,730 at Three Rivers Stadium.

They led, 2-0, in the second inning on back-to-back home runs by Eric Karros and Bobby Bonilla. They hit three home runs overall, had veteran left-hander Carlos Perez on the mound and it appeared their seven-game trip would begin well.

But the Pirates didn’t cooperate.

Raul Mondesi hit his team-leading 27th homer--a two-run shot--in the eighth to cut the Pirates’ lead to 6-4, and he represented the winning run in the ninth, but Mondesi flied out to center to end the game.

The Dodgers dropped under .500 (62-63) for the second time in four days. They lost ground and trail the Chicago Cubs and New York Mets in the wild-card race by seven games.

The Dodgers were hitless in 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position, and failed to score in the sixth with runners on first and third and none out. Karros struck out swinging and Bonilla grounded into a double play.

“We’ve been talking about this so much, but we still haven’t put anything together,” third baseman Bonilla said. “It won’t be too late until it’s September and we’re six or seven games out, but September is getting close.

“E.K. [Karros] homered, I homered and Mondy [Mondesi] hit one--and we still lost. It’s mind-boggling that we do all of that, and we can’t win the game. That’s been the signature for this year.”

Karros agreed.

“We had the home runs, but we didn’t execute and we just wasted a lot of opportunities,” he said. “You make your own breaks in this game, and you create your own environment to be successful.

“We haven’t had a lot of anything going for us this year, and that’s why we’re in the situation we’re in. It doesn’t matter how we got here, the only thing that matters is that we’re here now.”

The Dodgers suffered their ninth loss in 13 games. They hoped that their 1-0 victory over the NL East -leading Atlanta Braves on Sunday would provide momentum, but that didn’t happen.

Perez (7-12) struggled through six innings. He gave up seven hits and four runs while dropping to 0-2 in four starts with the Dodgers.

Pirate starter Jason Schmidt (10-9) pitched seven-plus innings to earn his second successive victory after losing eight in a row.

Schmidt gave up 10 hits--including all three Dodger homers--and four runs while striking out four with one walk. Closer Rich Loiselle worked two scoreless innings to earn his 15th save.

Karros and Bonilla hit their consecutive homers--their 15th and seventh homers, respectively--with one out in the second. That marked the third time the Dodgers have hit back-to-back homers.

The Pirates tied the score, 2-2, in the fourth on Jose Guillen’s one-out, two-run single to right. They took a 4-2 lead in the sixth when No. 7 hitter Freddy Garcia hit a one-out, two-run homer--his seventh--to left-center.

That ended Perez’s night.

“Carlos was up a little with his pitches,” Manager Glenn Hoffman said. “He’s been throwing well, but he got the ball up tonight.”

The Pirates closed their scoring against left-hander Mark Guthrie in the seventh. Tony Womack singled to begin the inning and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt.

Guthrie then hit Jason Kendall with a pitch to put runners on first and second with one out. They scored on Kevin Young’s triple into the left-field corner, taking a 6-2 lead.

“I’ve said a lot of things already,” Hoffman said. “We have a lot of veterans in there [the clubhouse] who have been around the block, and they know what they have to do.”

But they’re not doing it now.