[0] DODGERS OUTSLUG SLUGGERS : DODGERS 10, ST. LOUIS 7.

Byline: Brian Dohn Daily News Staff Writer

The folks came to see Mark McGwire put on a home run show. He did. Big Mac hit two homers, including one out of Dodger Stadium.

McGwire was the main attraction, but the Dodgers' bats put on quite a display themselves. The Dodgers wracked up 14 hits and beat the St. Louis Cardinals 10-7 in front of a season-high 54,179 on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

Todd Hollandsworth homered for the first time in more than a year and Raul Mondesi added to his National League lead with his 16th homer of the season.

You figure it had to be this type of game since Darren Dreifort started for the Dodgers. When the right-hander is on the mound runs are scored. Not necessarily against Dreifort, but rather on his behalf. He had the eighth-best run-support of any pitcher in the National League, and nothing happened Saturday to change that.

McGwire's first homer was a towering shot to left-center field, but his two-run blast in the top of the eighth inning to left-center dwarfed it.

The 484-foot homer off Jamie Arnold cleared the roof of the bleachers, the third player to accomplish the feat. Willie Stargell did it twice and Mike Piazza, who did it Sept. 21, 1997, are the other two. It was McGwire's 12th homer of the season and the 55th time in his career he's hit two in one game.

It brought the Cardinals within 9-7, but Mondesi homered with one out in the eighth to push the Dodgers lead to 10-7.

Dreifort (5-2) was neither dazzling nor disastrous, but he did provide six innings in which he allowed five runs on six hits. Dreifort walked three and struck out six in tying Kevin Brown for the team lead in wins.

Closer Jeff Shaw, who blew his last two saves, walked a tightrope in the ninth. He allowed a two-out single and walked McGwire to bring Ray Lankford to the plate. Lankford homered in the ninth to beat the Dodgers on Sunday in St. Louis, but Shaw got his ninth save when Lankford lined out to first to end the game.

The Dodgers scored for Dreifort. Each member of the starting lineup had at least one hit and by scoring nine runs in the first five innings increased his run-support to nearly one run per inning he's pitched. The Dodgers have scored 41 runs in the 47 innings Dreifort has thrown.

Long called a pitcher's park, the first two months of the season have gone a long way in ruining the reputation of Chavez Ravine. During the last three seasons there were 1.6 homers hit per game at Dodger Stadium.

Entering the second game of the series with the Cardinals, the Dodgers and their opponents had hit 67 homers in 22 games, more than three per game.

McGwire made sure the new-fangled trend continued when he hit a towering homer to left-center field in the top of the first to put St. Louis ahead 1-0. It was the first time McGwire homered at Dodger Stadium, though too much has been made of that. McGwire missed last year's series in Los Angeles with an injury and was playing here for the fifth time.

It was McGwire's 11th homer of the season, and it leaves Cincinnati's Cinergy Field the lone major-league ballpark at which McGwire hasn't homered.

The Cardinals' lead was short-lived behind the lackluster pitching of starter and loser Clint Sodowsky (0-1), who allowed the Dodgers to score five times in the bottom of the inning. The initial blow came via Hollandsworth, making his first career start at first base. He hit a two-run homer to right to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead, his first homer since May 8, 1998.

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Photo

PHOTO The Cardinals' Fernando Tatis, right, and Mark McGwire celebrate after Tatis' three-run homer in the fourth off Dodgers pitcher Darren Dreifort.

Kevin Karzin/Associated Press