DODGERS ARE COUNTING ON A GIANT FALL.

Byline: Kevin Acee Daily News Staff Writer

Riding a six-game winning streak into the All-Star break, the Dodgers were able to abandon bad feelings about the season's first half.

Largely because they won 13 of their past 20 games, they had something to look forward to at the start of the second half.

The Giants are at Dodger Stadium for four games beginning tonight, and unlike their four games in San Francisco last month, there is no debate: This series is huge.

``This is the way you want to finish up going into the break,'' manager Bill Russell said. ``You come back and right there is the first-place team. Let's get on with it. That can set the tone in a hurry. It can send a message real quick about this team.''

There has been speculation for some time about when the underachieving Dodgers and the overachieving Giants would both find their appropriate spots in the standings.

The Giants have fooled all the prognosticators and sit atop the National League West, six games ahead of the Dodgers, the preseason favorites who only recently have made a race of things.

If the Giants go 37-38 the rest of the season, the Dodgers would be forced to play the second half at 13 games above .500 to win the West.

The Dodgers know they need to start by at least taking three of four from the Giants.

By Sunday, when they begin an arduous eight-game trip to Colorado, Florida and Atlanta, the Dodgers will be two, four, six, eight or 10 games behind the Giants.

Two or four back, and around baseball it will be considered the beginning of the end for the Giants. The anticipated surge by the Dodgers and collapse by the Giants will have commenced.

Six or more back - particularly more - and the Dodgers will embark on the final 2-1/2 months of the season like a backpacker facing a steep climb with a heavy load and a sick stomach.

The sick stomach would be nothing new.

It turns out, Opening Day was an omen for the Dodgers.

``We faced a good pitcher that shut us down,'' they said April 1, after the Phillies' Curt Schilling shut them out on two hits over eight innings.

They would say it after so many games that followed, it became sickening - both to the people hearing it and the people saying it.

The Dodgers pitchers maintained the majors' best ERA through much of the first two months of the season. Problem was, the Dodgers offense was among the majors' most inept. Then came June. The Dodgers offense stopped snoring, but opponents started scoring.

As a team they are scoring a season-high 4.2 runs a game and hitting a season-high .262. But their staff ERA is a season-high 3.43.

Eric Karros hit .322 with 13 homers and 35 RBI the final 35 games of the first half. It was what the Dodgers had waited for. This coincided - possibly prompted - an upswing in the team's run production to an average of more than five a game. Unfortunately, their record the first 29 games of his awakening was 13-16.

Karros and catcher Mike Piazza continued to produce, and the rest of the team joined them on a consistent basis in July. (Six games ago.)

So here the Dodgers are.

They are 45-42, in second place. The Giants are 51-36, in first. The Colorado Rockies, who matched the Dodgers' past six victories with six losses, are 43-45. The defending division champion San Diego Padres are out of the race at 38-49.

It is widely held that a team in the NL East, of which four have decidedly better records than the Dodgers, will win the league's wild-card spot. So, making the playoffs will require a division title.

``We've got our work cut out for ourselves,'' Karros said.

Here they go again.

The past two years have seen nearly the same start to a season. In 1995, the Dodgers were 41-40 at the break and finished 12 games above .500, champions of the West. Last season, they were 47-42 at this point and ended up with 90 wins, 18 games over .500 and recipients of the NL wild card.

``One thing we can go on is history,'' Russell said of his team's chances of overtaking the Giants. ``You don't want to count on it, but that's the way it's gone.'' When the Dodgers talk of there being plenty of time in the second half to come back, they seem to forget being spent by the postseason the last two years and going three-and-out in the playoffs.

They were supposed to be better this season. They weren't supposed to have to play Piazza every day in September. A final-month surge was not part of the plan.

It is now.

And, the Dodgers are counting on a Giants stumble. While the Dodgers finished the first half with a 14-10 stretch, the Giants went 16-8.

``We're hoping they're going to run into a bad streak,'' Russell said. ``We're hoping we play good when they do.'' Indeed, if the Giants do trip, the Dodgers need to be better prepared to run past them than they were in May.

It is ludicrous to say one game changed a 162-game season. But the ramifications of May 11 cannot be ignored. That is the day the Dodgers' first half turned sour.

Having won nine of 11 games and leading Montreal 3-2, the Dodgers were one out from a victory that would have moved them into a first-place tie.

Instead, Doug Strange hit a home run off Todd Worrell to tie the game, and the Expos won 6-3 in 10 innings. San Francisco remained in first place alone.

The Dodgers went 3-8 over the next 11 games. While San Francisco played the next 30 games at .500, they were able to gain substantially on the Dodgers, who went 11-19 in the same stretch.

Quickly - as in, today - the Dodgers have a chance to change all that.

DODGERS MIDSEASON REPORT

MANAGER - B. If it's pizazz you want, call Richard Simmons. Some players wish Bill Russell was more communicative. Credit him with keeping the clubhouse from exploding.

EXECUTIVE VP - B+. No A for Fred Claire because Chip Hale was a bust, Chad Fonville is finished, Billy Ashley is still here and Tripp Cromer was not here sooner.

STARTING PITCHING - A-. It all went bad at once, but that wouldn't have hurt so much if the offense had helped out. Ismael Valdes and Pedro Astacio were bad at times but brilliant at others.

BULLPEN - A. Only that 4.20 ERA the past 28 games kept the plus off their ``A.'' No one needed the All-Star break like these guys. They've worked every game but one since May 30.

CATCHER - A-. Mike Piazza might be the best all-around hitter in the game, but his average dropped 100 points when runners were in scoring position the first two months.

INFIELD - B-. Eric Karros' last 40 games and Greg Gagne's surprising 36 RBI brought this grade up. Wilton Guerrero cheated. Gagne and Todd Zeile combined for 24 errors.

OUTFIELD - C. Raul Mondesi prevented a ``D.'' There have been six different left fielders (a combined for a .229 average, 34 RBI and 35 runs). Brett Butler was absent too often.

BENCH - D. Pinch-hitters are 12 for 104 (.115). Where is the left-handed power? Game-winners by Ashley, Tom Prince, Nelson Liriano and Eddie Williams kept group from failing. OVERALL - B-. Underachievers they are, but they were five games above .500 at the break last year and ended up winning 90 games. They have won six in a row and 13 of their past 20.

DODGERS TODAY

Game time: 7:05 p.m.

TV/Radio: FSW2; KABC-AM (790); KWKW-AM (1330, Spanish).

Matchup: In the opener of a crucial four-game series at Dodger Stadium that is also the start of the second half of the season, Dodgers RHP Chan Ho Park (5-5, 3.29) faces Giants RHP Kirk Rueter (5-3, 3.80). The first-place Giants have maintained their six-game lead in the NL West by winning four straight and 13 of their past 20. The second-place Dodgers have won six in a row and 13 of 20. The teams have split six games this season. Park has given up 15 home runs this season, including one in his loss June 22 at San Francisco. Rueter allowed the Dodgers two runs on five hits for the victory that day.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos, 2 Boxes

PHOTO (1--color) Mike Piazza and Eric Karros have been instrumental in the team's surge before the break.

Tina Gerson / Daily News

(2) Six different left fielders have led to confusion in the Dodgers outfield.

John McCoy / Daily News

BOX: (1) DODGERS MIDSEASON REPORT (see text)

(2) DODGERS TODAY (see text)