DODGERS DEFEAT IS TOTAL COLLAPSE : ST. LOUIS 6, DODGERS 3.

Byline: Kevin Acee Daily News Staff Writer

The Dodgers say the frustration permeating the clubhouse these days is worse than that which gripped them a month ago during similarly trying times.

It's later in the season, they're playing worse and after Saturday they no longer have to wonder how bad it would be if their pitching and defense collapsed like their offense.

The Dodgers' 6-3 loss to the Cardinals, their fourth straight defeat and 10th in 13 games, featured a month's worth of lowlights.

Four Dodgers errors. Two Cardinals doubles that were difficult but catchable fly balls. Two Dodgers runners caught between bases. Two Dodgers hits between the second and ninth innings. And afterward, a closed-door, closed-hallway meeting.

``Everything happened in the game today that could have happened,'' said Dodgers manager Bill Russell, who called the team meeting to let his players know what he thought of their play of late.

Reporters were not only kept outside the door to the clubhouse but down a hall and beyond another door. The meeting lasted about 20 minutes.

When he addressed the media, Russell looked no worse for wear than he has after any Dodgers loss.

But this one was worse.

``Every aspect of the game,'' Russell said. ``It was a total breakdown.''

Thus, as they sit at .500 for the first time in more than a month, the Dodgers are confronting the question of whether they are playing badly or just plain bad.

They can only hope that Saturday's game will be remembered as the end of the beginning and not the beginning of the end.

``It's going to have to stop,'' third baseman Todd Zeile said. ``I don't think Billy or the Dodgers or Mr. O'Malley or whoever owns the team is going to stand by and watch four more months of this.''

A 14-0 loss to Atlanta on April 28 was also the fourth in a string and dropped the Dodgers to 11-11. They promptly started a four-game winning streak, eventually rising seven games above .500.

Following the Dodgers' second loss in that April streak, players called a closed-door meeting. After the loss in Atlanta, many on the team cut loose deep into the night and showed up at the park the next day feeling cleansed.

Of the possibility that a similar turnaround might occur now, Zeile said, `It's a sad testament that we've got to have a rousing meeting to motivate the team.''

At the suggestion that the Dodgers' well-documented struggles at the plate have carried over to the field, first baseman Eric Karros said players ``at this level'' should be able to forget and separate those things.

But the Dodgers are not doing that.

``We're playing like we're very inexperienced,'' Karros said. ``There's no excuse for making mental mistakes.''

The blunders that were made Saturday could make someone go mental.

The Dodgers took a 2-0 lead in the second inning on a single by Zeile and a line-drive home run by Todd Hollandsworth, who entered the game in a 1-for-17 slump that included seven strikeouts in his past 10 at-bats.

``Hollandsworth, who hasn't been swinging the bat very well, hits a two-run homer,'' Russell said. ``You were looking for good things to happen. They didn't.''

Cardinals starter Todd Stottlemyre, who incidentally got the victory by becoming the third Cardinals pitcher in the series to make it to at least the eighth inning, got the first hit off Dodgers starter Ismael Valdes with two out in the third inning. Stottlemyre ended up at second when left fielder Eric Anthony's throw back to the infield went awry and scored on Delino DeShields' double.

Ray Lankford led off the fourth with a shot to center field that Hollandsworth looked to have in his reach. He didn't, and Lankford was jogging as he approached second base. Lankford went to third on Willie McGee's single to left and scored on a bloop single by Gary Gaetti.

In the meantime, the Dodgers had three base runners from the third inning to the seventh. One, Hollandsworth in the fifth inning, got caught stealing after a rundown between second and third. Another, Wilton Guerrero in the sixth, got picked off first.

Still, the game was tied 2-2. Not for long.

The Cardinals scored four runs in the bottom of the sixth on a single, a double, a home run and two Dodgers errors.

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Photo

Photo: ISMAEL VALDES: Dodger pitcher surrenders six runs, eight hits and is handed the loss.