DODGERS' FALL GOES ON LITTLE: LINEUP TO GET CHANGED ARIZONA 12, DODGERS 3.

Byline: TONY JACKSON 

Staff Writer

PHOENIX -- Having finally seen enough, having finally grown weary of watching his team sleepwalk its way through game after game while its already-faint playoff hopes were completely vanishing and the rest of the National League contenders were running off and leaving the Dodgers to wallow in a sea of late-season irrelevance, having finally tired of questions from the media about Jeff Kent's rant against the club's younger players the day before, Grady Little finally did something about it Friday night.

The frustrated Dodgers manager closed the clubhouse for half an hour -- three times the league-mandated maximum -- after a 12-3 humiliation at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks, who continued what appears to be an inexorable march to an NL West title the Dodgers once believed would be theirs.

While a deadline-conscious media waited in a service tunnel outside, Little addressed his club, apparently about the rather drowsy approach it has taken into the first five games of this horrific, final road trip.

Little wouldn't get into specifics about what he talked about. But he was just vague enough that it was readily apparent anyway.

On a night when Dodgers left fielder Luis Gonzalez should have been able to enjoy his 2,500th career hit, coming as it did before 37,753 at Chase Field, the ball park where Gonzalez was a fan favorite, a community icon and even a World Series hero during his eight seasons playing here, the Dodgers instead decided to stink up the joint.

So Little's meeting was, in a way, an attempt to alleviate the stench. And even if it did amount to closing the clubhouse door after the season had already gotten away, well, it at least sent a clear message that there still are eight games left on the schedule and these Dodgers still have something left to play for.

Something like third place in the division, still a remote possibility with Colorado coming to Dodger Stadium for three games beginning Tuesday night.

Something like a winning record, which still requires the Dodgers to go at least 3-5 the rest of the way.

Something like pride, a little thing this club hasn't exhibited much of in recent days.

"We just have a lot of people who haven't been through this time of the season where you aren't still fighting for something at the end," Little said.

"It's not a good thing. There is a lot of frustration, and understandably so, but it's like anything else in life. You deal with it. We're going to keep going."

And then, Little dropped the closest thing to a bombshell the manager of a non-contending club can come up with at this time of year.

"I think the lineup will be a little bit different this last week of the season."

Translation: The Dodgers are about to get younger. So those youthful growing pains that Kent complained about Thursday are going to be exposed, laid bare for the world to see, as sort of a litmus test of just what this team has as it heads into 2008.

Because 2008 is what these final eight games will be all about.

While Little was addressing his apparently divided troops, the handful of reporters waiting outside met briefly with general manager Ned Colletti, ostensibly so Colletti could address Kent's comments. During the conversation, though, Colletti reiterated his statement of last week that Little will return for a third season as manager, so if reports Little has lost all or part of the clubhouse are true, well, then the clubhouse had better adjust quickly.

The Diamondbacks scored three in the fourth to take a 6-3 lead, but the game had really gotten away from the Dodgers (79-75) the previous inning. That was when Esteban Loaiza, nursing a 3-1 lead, got Tony Clark to hit a high, catchable pop fly in foul territory up the third-base line. Third baseman Nomar Garciaparra, one of those veterans like Kent whom Kent implied the younger players don't listen to enough, appeared to have a bead on it. Tony Abreu, who might or might not have been one of the young players to whom Kent was referring, then appeared to call Garciaparra off. Garciaparra ducked, and the ball fell between them.

Clark then hit a two-run, tying homer off Loaiza (1-3), who also was charged with all three fourth-inning runs and now has an 8.53 ERA since the Dodgers acquired him from Oakland on Aug. 27. Gonzalez's 2,500th hit, a bad-hop single past Clark and into right field, came off Bob Wickman in the seventh inning.

[e-mail]

[phone]

DODGERS

TODAY

Dodgers (Wells 8-8) at Arizona (Webb 16-10), 6:40p.m., Chase Field. TV: Ch. 9.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

Dodgers starter Esteban Loaiza surrendered six earned runs in four innings at Arizona, inflating his era to 8.53.

Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press