DODGERS' BATS IN THE COOLER OFFENSE STRUGGLES AGAIN IN SECOND LOSS TO PADRES.

Byline: TONY JACKSON  Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO - Two days ago, the hottest-hitting club in the National League boarded a bus at Dodger Stadium and headed down Interstate 5 for a three-game series at Petco Park. At the time, the Dodgers led the NL in batting average, on-base percentage and runs scored.

Apparently, though, somebody forgot to pack the bats.

Twenty-four hours after they were silenced for six innings by veteran right-hander and former Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park, who previously had never beaten them in his career, the Dodgers were stymied for seven more innings, this time by a rookie right-hander who had never faced them.

As a result, not even another injection of late-inning heroics by rookie phenom Matt Kemp could save the Dodgers from another loss, this time 5-3 to the San Diego Padres in front of 30,011 at Petco Park, leaving the Dodgers with just their second two-game losing streak in the past six weeks and a grand total of four runs in the first two games of what could prove to be a pivotal series in the National League West.

Kemp, pinch-hitting for the first time in his three-week, major-league career, led off the eighth inning by blasting the first pitch thrown by Padres reliever Scott Linebrink a conservatively estimated 433 feet, onto a high platform fronting the batter's eye in straightaway center field.

That tied the game after the Dodgers had trailed 3-2 since the second inning.

The home run was Kemp's seventh since he was promoted all the way from Double-A Jacksonville on the morning of May 28. That callup came almost two months into the season. But Kemp's performance thus far has made that a moot point when it comes to the National League's Rookie of the Year award, for which Kemp now must be considered a front-runner.

But the euphoria didn't last more than a few minutes. Hong-Chih Kuo, brought in to pitch the bottom of the eighth, began the inning by walking Brian Giles. One out later, Adrian Gonzalez chased Kuo (0-4) from the game with an RBI double, putting the Padres in front to stay.

After Gonzalez took third on a throwing error by Rafael Furcal - the third in two games by the Dodgers shortstop - Josh Bard greeted Danys Baez with an RBI single to left to give San Diego a 5-3 lead.

The Dodgers (35-30) remained tied with Arizona atop the division, but the resurgent, third-place Padres crept to within one game.

Padres rookie Mike Thompson, who came in having made all of five career starts in the big leagues, gave up a two-run homer to Willy Aybar in the second inning and nothing else, all while holding the Dodgers to three hits. But most disturbing of all for the suddenly punchless Dodgers was this: Thompson got through his seven innings on a stunningly efficient 79 pitches.

Aybar's homer, which came after Thompson (3-2) had walked Jeff Kent, gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead. But after Brad Penny gave it all back and then some in the bottom of the inning, the Dodgers would mount just one serious threat the rest of the way. That came when Kenny Lofton led off the sixth by trying to bunt his way aboard and wound up on second base when Mike Piazza threw the ball up the right-field line.

The sequence of events that followed offered a perfect illustration of just why the Dodgers were never really in this game, and why Thompson had such a light workload.

Nomar Garciaparra popped up on the first pitch; J.D. Drew popped up on a 2-0 pitch; and Dave Roberts made a sliding catch on a sinking liner by Kent to end the inning - during which Lofton never came close to advancing, much less scoring.

So much for situational hitting.

The two-run lead Aybar had provided lasted exactly two batters into the bottom of the inning. Penny gave up a leadoff double to Adrian Gonzalez and a two-run homer to the front row in left field to Mark Bellhorn, whose 10th-inning, walk-off hit on April 30 had given the Padres what still might prove to be a pivotal, come-from-behind win over the Dodgers.

Beginning with that game, when the Dodgers had been on the verge of completing a three-game sweep with a five-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, the Padres now have won five consecutive games against the Dodgers.

Padres closer Trevor Hoffman pitched a scoreless ninth for his 15th save.

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CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- color) San Diego's Mark Bellhorn is greeted in the dugout after hitting a two-run homer in the second inning.

(2) Dodgers' left fielder Andre Ethier, below, can only watch as a fan wearing a Dodgers jersey catches a home run hit by the Padres' Mark Bellhorn in the second inning of Wednesday's game.

Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press

(3) BILLINGSLEY

Box:

DODGERS at SAN DIEGO

-Tony Jackson