DODGERS' CLOSING ACT FLOPS BROXTON CAN'T HOLD FOUR-RUN LEAD IN LOSS SAN DIEGO 6, DODGERS 5.

Byline: TONY JACKSON 

Staff Writer

SAN DIEGO -- Hours before Thursday night's game, the closest thing yet this season to a game the Dodgers absolutely, positively had to win, Takashi Saito stood on the field at Petco Park and ran several sprints between the pitcher's mound and first base as if covering the bag on a ground ball.

It was one final test of the soundness of Saito's left hamstring, which had tightened up on him four days earlier at Pittsburgh and forced him out of action since.

Once Saito had passed that test, manager Grady Little, the medical staff and Saito himself came to a mutual -- and ultimately fateful -- agreement.

Saito, one of the most reliable closers in the league, a man who hasn't blown a save since late last season, a man who clearly was healthy and ready to go, would be left alone for one more precautionary day, even as the Dodgers tried to avoid a disastrous three-game sweep at the hands of their chief division rivals, the San Diego Padres.

It might have been the right decision. It might have been the wrong decision. But there is no doubting or debating the fact that it was the decision that would loom large on an evening the Dodgers will remember for a long time.

An evening that ended with a blown four-run lead in the ninth, a humiliating walk off the field for overmatched de facto closer Jonathan Broxton, and for the Dodgers, a catastrophic, 6-5 loss to the giddy Padres in front of 40,631.

An evening the Dodgers won't soon forget. No matter how much they try to convince everyone -- mostly themselves -- that they will.

"We have to, because we came in here with different intentions and that's not the way it went," Dodgers left fielder Luis Gonzalez said. "We still have a long way to go, but we have to try to right the ship and get back to doing what we do, which is win series.

"We have to try to put that inning and that game behind us."

That will be easier for some -- like Rafael Furcal, who drove in three runs with a pair of two-out hits, and Gonzalez, who appeared to put the game away with his seventh home run of the season in the eighth inning -- than for others -- like Broxton, who responded to the obvious fact the wheels were starting to come off by trying to blow every pitch by every batter, only to end up getting blown out of the box.

It might not be that easy for Little, either.

It was one thing to stick to his pregame decision to lay off Saito. It was quite another to sit back and watch Broxton's implosion, which was aided by a couple of lucky Padres bounces and a costly miscue by first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, and not so much as get anyone else up in the bullpen.

"There was no thought to bringing anyone else into the game," Little said, without a hint of self doubt. "(Broxton) was throwing the ball well at the start of the inning. Saito wasn't going to pitch. We have over 100 games to go, and to use him at this point wouldn't have made any sense at all."

Apparently, then, it did make sense to watch Broxton face nine batters and retire only one of them -- none of the first seven.

The collapse began when Geoff Blum beat out a slowly hit roller to second. Terrmel Sledge hit a grounder to first that flew backward out of Garciaparra's hand as he tried to transfer it for the throw to second. Marcus Giles blooped one to left that fell just in front of Brady Clark, loading the bases.

Jose Cruz Jr. beat out a grounder to first on which Broxton (2-2) might have been late getting to the bag to cover, making it 5-2. Adrian Gonzalez, who to that point had been fairly silent in this series, smoked a ground- rule double to center, a hit that certainly would have cleared the bases and tied the game if it hadn't bounced over the wall. And after an intentional walk to Josh Bard, Mike Cameron finally did tie it on a sharp single to center.

With the bases still loaded and none out, Broxton struck out Kevin Kouzmanoff, but that only delayed what everyone in the ballpark knew was an inevitable outcome. Russell Branyan worked the count full, Broxton missed with his next pitch, and that was that.

The Dodgers, who had to settle for the National League wild-card spot last season because they dropped 13 of 18 to the Padres before tying them for the division title, had lost a game they simply couldn't afford to lose. And Saito had a front-row seat for all of it.

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Photo:

Dodgers left fielder Brady Clark can't reach a ninth-inning hit by the Padres' Marcus Giles.

Lenny Ignelzi/Associated Press