Dodgers are hitting brakes before break

The All-Star break couldn’t come at a better time for the Dodgers, who will limp across the first-half finish line this afternoon with two-fifths of their rotation on the disabled list, their All-Star ace slowed by a blister on his pitching hand and their offense sputtering like a ’68 Rambler.

But they’ll get there in second place in the National League West -- which qualifies as good news or bad news, depending on your perspective.

It’s good news when you consider the Dodgers could be much worse off after losing four in a row and six of their last nine, the most recent a 7-2 loss to the Florida Marlins on Saturday night at Dodger Stadium.

It’s bad news, however, if you consider the Dodgers led the division for 52 of the season’s first 73 days but have been alone in first for just three days over the last month.

Either way the Dodgers have a lot of regrouping to do over the four-day pause in the schedule, and Manager Grady Little got an early jump on that Saturday by leaving starter Derek Lowe on the mound for a season-high 114 pitches, resting his bullpen while allowing Lowe to throw 100 or more pitches for the third consecutive start.

With Lowe unlikely to pitch again for a week, the workload shouldn’t be a problem. But the fact that he allowed a season-high 10 hits and failed to get out of the seventh inning for the fourth time in as many starts should be a worry for a team whose strength -- starting pitching -- has suddenly become a concern.

Only one Dodgers starter has gone as long as seven innings this month and Lowe (8-8) became just the second to go more than five innings in the last week. And he didn’t look good doing it, with Florida getting runners on base in four of the first five innings.

“Everything goes in stretches,” Lowe said. “It’s not like this is going to be the norm. I think this is just a bump in the road.”

If so, it’s the same one the Dodgers hit on this part of the schedule last year, when they lost five straight and 13 of 14 coming out of the All-Star break, falling into the NL West cellar.

“We don’t want that to happen again,” Lowe said. “It will be very good for this team to have that four-day break.”

Lowe looks as though he could use a break, too, given the way he finished Saturday. Although the Marlins had him on the ropes through the first six innings, all their scoring in those innings took place during a six-pitch sequence in the fourth when Miguel Cabrera and Josh Willingham drove in three runs on a pair of homers.

But Lowe admitted he ran out of gas in the seventh when Hanley Ramirez, Dan Uggla and Cabrera led off with successive hits, Uggla’s single scoring Ramirez to make it 4-1. A throwing error later in the inning allowed Cabrera to score.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, were collecting 12 hits but doing little with them, leaving two runners on in the second, fifth and eighth innings and having a runner thrown out at the plate in the fourth, when they scored just one run after loading the bases with one out. They added another on consecutive singles by Juan Pierre, Russell Martin and Jeff Kent in the seventh, but that proved far too little.

“It’s just another loss,” Lowe sighed. “I’m very glad to see the All-Star break coming.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com