CLOSING IN ON A TITLE : DODGERS LEAD WEST BY 2-1/2 DODGERS 7, GIANTS 5.

Byline: Tim Brown Daily News Staff Writer

In a season that was barely large enough to hold all of what happened to them, the Dodgers, with four games to play, have their largest lead in the National League West.

The Dodgers defeated the San Francisco Giants 7-5 Wednesday night before an announced 42,405 at Dodger Stadium. They are 2-1/2 games ahead of the San Diego Padres. Their magic number for the division championship, their second in a row, is two games. They have clinched a tie for a wild-card berth.

The Dodgers came from five runs behind Giants, finally on a pinch-hit home run by Billy Ashley and an eighth-inning home run by Eric Karros. They scored all seven runs in their final three at-bats, while the Padres lost 5-3 to the Colorado Rockies in San Diego.

For a guy who first lost his everyday job and then lost his platoon in left field - both times to rookie Todd Hollandsworth - Billy Ashley has shown a remarkable knack for the dramatic. It was only six weeks ago that Ashley homered in a pinch-hit role to beat the Atlanta Braves - and John Smoltz - by a 2-1 score. Less than a week before that, Ashley homered in the pinch against the Houston Astros in a game the Dodgers won in 11 innings.

Ashley tied a Los Angeles record with his fifth pinch home run, and those have come in only 29 pinch at-bats. With two out in the seventh inning, his opposite-field shot, his ninth homer overall, tied the score 5-5.

Karros homered to lead off the eighth inning, when the Dodgers scored again on a wild pitch.

Apparently, the oddity of the Dodgers' three-run sixth inning Tuesday wasn't such news after all. The Giants do those things nightly.

The Dodgers scored four sixth-inning runs Wednesday, three of them on a one-out, bases-loaded ground ball to third baseman Kim Batiste.

Tim Wallach, in a 2-for-25 slump, hit it, what appeared to be a sure inning-ending double-play ball. Instead, Batiste threw in the general direction of the right-field foul pole, and two runs scored. It was the first error of the play. The second came moments later, when right fielder Glenallen Hill's relay throw skipped past cutoff man Desi Wilson, and Raul Mondesi scored from third base.

Previously, with one out in the inning and starting from a 5-0 deficit, Eric Karros drove in Wayne Kirby with a legitimate single. It was Karros' 110th RBI, and his 77th in his past 93 games.

The single finished Giants starter William VanLandingham, though the Dodgers had yet to hit a ball sharply against him. Reliever Mark Dewey gave up a single to Mondesi and the double play that wasn't. The Giants announced later that VanLandingham left the game ``with right elbow fatigue.''

The inning brought the Dodgers to within 5-4, and Ashley tied the score in the seventh.

The early strategy, or, how the Dodgers got five runs behind the Giants: Better pitch to Rick Wilkins, an otherwise fine catcher who has no right batting cleanup, with a runner on base, than to Barry Bonds,who is on the short list of the best hitters in baseball.

And so, with two out in the third inning, Dodgers starter Pedro Astacio walked Bonds on a 3-and-2 pitch. Incidentally, for all the stir over the walks Bonds must endure - his 149 are a National League record - the man takes a lot of close pitches.

Bonds stole second base, his 38th, and watched from there as Wilkins hit his 13th home run, this into the right-field bleachers. Bonds later stole his 39th base, and so is within one steal of becoming baseball's second 40-homer, 40-steal player. Jose Canseco was the first in 1988. It's a Bay Area thing.

The Giants, belittled during most of the past four months, during which they are 29-59, led the Dodgers 3-0.

Bonds was successful in each of his first three attempts in the series, but Dodgers catcher Mike Piazza caught him in the sixth inning, which Bonds led off with a single. Bonds was out by a lot, much to the delight of the crowd, which couldn't recognize anyone else to root against. Piazza had thrown out 23 of the previous 177 baserunners who attempted to steal.

However, the Giants' inning did not end there. They scored twice after Astacio walked Wilkins, when Desi Wilson hit a 400-foot line drive over the right-center field fence. Between the walk and the home run, the Dodgers were unable to turn a double play, when Wilkins went hard into second base on Glenallen Hill's grounder to shortstop.

The failure to make that play led to the Giants' 5-0 lead, and to Astacio's failure to reach the end of the sixth inning.

While the Dodgers' coaches consider their postseason rotation, Astacio flamed out by allowing five runs in 5-2/3 innings to a team that has three proven hitters in its lineup. In his last two starts, he has allowed 10 runs in 10-2/3 innings.

As the baseball world jokes about the Giants' minor-league talent, the Giants are a determined bunch. They just won four in a row against the Colorado Rockies. Laugh now. They effectively eliminated the Rockies, and the Dodgers don't look like they're enjoying this.

Among the affected: Rookie Todd Hollandsworth has one hit in his last 13 at-bats.

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2 Photos

Photo: (1) Barry Bonds of the Giants fouls off a Pedro A stacio pitch in the first inning as the Dodgers' Mike Piazza works the plate.

(2--color) The Dodgers' Greg Gagne throws on the run to catch Giants pitcher William VanLandingham in the second inning.

Terri Thuente / Daily News