BROWN SHAKY BUT GETS WIN PITCHER THROWS TWO INNINGS IN RETURN DODGERS 3, NEW YORK 2.

Byline: Brian Dohn Staff Writer

NEW YORK - Dodgers manager Jim Tracy tossed around his game plan in the early evening hours. The ideal situation in which to use Kevin Brown, he thought, was in a one-sided game, and he wanted to rest Eric Gagne because the closer pitched three consecutive days in Montreal.

Then the impact of the playoff race took hold and a victory was within reach.

So Brown pitched for the first time since May 26, allowing one run in two wild but adequate innings to record his first career win in relief, and Gagne pitched an overpowering ninth inning to lead the Dodgers past the floundering Mets 3-2 Friday at Shea Stadium.

Marquis Grissom provided the winning margin with a two-run homer in the eighth inning as the Dodgers increased their wild-card lead to two games over San Francisco.

Just what the victory means is debatable since the players' association set Aug. 30 as a strike date if a collective-bargaining agreement isn't reached.

That's what pregame clubhouse talk centered on - a looming work stoppage - but afterward the Dodgers reveled in their third consecutive win and seventh in nine games.

``It's a matter of trying to get consistent,'' said a jovial Brown, who was activated Thursday. ``I felt really good throwing (Thursday in the bullpen), but (Friday) I didn't feel as sharp, but I got in the game. There were some pitches that were close, but I haven't thrown them in a while so I don't know if they were strikes or if I was imagining them.

``I would have preferred (starter Hideo) Nomo get the win.''

Nomo, who had cramping in his right hamstring, allowed one run in six innings but wasn't involved in the decision.

Instead, Brown (3-3) won for the first time since May 11 even though he walked four - including three in a 36-pitch seventh inning - and saw the Mets take a 2-1 lead on Timo Perez's single. He was saved by Grissom's 14th homer an inning later.

``It's what I live for,'' Grissom said of the late-inning at-bat. ``The game is on the line. That's when I relax. That's when I have fun, when you get good wood on the ball when the (opposing) crowd is loud.''

Gagne recorded his 42nd save, one behind Atlanta's John Smoltz for the league lead, and is two shy of Todd Worrell's Dodgers mark. He overpowered Vance Wilson, Rey Ordonez and Jeromy Burnitz for his third save in as many days, striking out two and getting Ordonez on a grounder to the mound.

``It was probably as good an inning as we've seen in the last four days,'' Tracy said. ``He was better stuff-wise than any of the pitches he threw in Montreal, several of which there were very good.''

The Dodgers new game-clinching combination probably won't be a factor today. Tracy said he wouldn't pitch Brown on consecutive days and Gagne has thrown four consecutive days.