DODGERS FAIL TO NAIL IT DOWN PHILADELPHIA 9, DODGERS 4.

Byline: Tony Jackson  Staff Writer

PHILADELPHIA - In a season that for Hideo Nomo was already bubbling over with frustration, the veteran right-hander caught his toughest break yet Wednesday night.

Or rather, the nail of his right index finger did.

Nomo left the game with one out in the second inning, having faced just six hitters, when his fingernail split and began cutting into the skin underneath, causing the finger to bleed. From there, things only got worse for the Dodgers, who trudged through the muck of a 9-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in front of 33,916 at Citizens Bank Park.

The Dodgers, who as recently as a week ago had gone a month without losing consecutive games, have dropped six in a row.

The game was scoreless when Nomo turned it over to long reliever Brian Falkenborg, but the Phillies had a runner on third. That runner, David Bell, came home when Chase Utley greeted Falkenborg with a sharp single to right, saddling Nomo with the loss on an evening when Falkenborg was torched for eight runs in 3 2/3 innings.

The question now for Nomo is whether the nail will heal quickly enough for him to make his next scheduled start Tuesday night at Milwaukee.

``I really doubt that,'' Dodgers assistant trainer Matt Wilson said. ``It's a matter of when he's able to pick up a ball and it's not so tender. Right now, it's so tender that he can't pick up a ball. Will he be ready in the next five days? It's doubtful, but is it possible? Sure.''

It marked the second consecutive start in which Nomo has lasted just 1 1/3 innings. He was chased in the second inning of last Thursday's loss to the Chicago Cubs after giving up six earned runs, a rally that was fueled by three consecutive walks.

This time, Nomo appeared to have better command.

``The unfortunate thing is I thought in the early stages it looked like this was going to be his best performance of the year,'' Dodgers manager Jim Tracy said. ``Right from the start, his velocity was up where it has been the past couple of years. He had a terrific splitter, and he threw strikes with it. But then he broke the nail. He was bleeding by the time we got to the mound, and he obviously couldn't continue.''

That left Falkenborg in the unenviable position of entering at a moment's notice and although he was given unlimited time to warm up, it didn't help much.

After allowing the inherited runner to score, Falkenborg got out of the second without further damage. But the Phillies got to him for five runs in the third, the last one on an RBI single by Marlon Byrd after Falkenborg issued a four-pitch walk to pitcher Eric Milton (5-0).

Falkenborg, who has three minor-league options left, likely wasticketed for Triple-A Las Vegas as soon as outfielder Jayson Werth comes off the disabled list. If Falkenborg had any hope of a last-minute reprieve, this performance might have killed it.

``I just lost focus for a little bit and got a little wild,'' Falkenborg said. ``You can't do that up here. All I can do is learn from it and work on some mechanical things. This is something you look forward to, but it didn't go the way I wanted it to.''

For Nomo (3-5), virtually nothing this season has gone the way he has wanted it to.

``You can say I'm pretty frustrated,'' he said, speaking through an interpreter. ``Of course, I would like to pitch deeper into some games and also help this team win the games I pitch. But so far, I haven't had too many of those. So yeah, I'm pretty frustrated.''

Club officials will wait a couple of days before officially determining whether Nomo can make his next start. If he can't, either Falkenborg or Jose Lima probably will go instead, with Lima the favorite. Falkenborg now has a 7.84 ERA in five relief appearances, but with Kazuhisa Ishii scheduled to pitch tonight after issuing seven walks in four innings Friday night against Cincinnati, Tracy had little choice but to save Lima for possible long duty.

That meant Falkenborg had to eat innings, no matter how much of a beating his ERA took.

The Dodgers (22-16), who led second-place San Diego in the National League West by as many as three games a week ago before watching that lead dwindle, finally have watched it vanish. The Padres swept a doubleheader at Pittsburgh to pull even.

Tony Jackson,[phone]

tony.jackson(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Hideo Nomo chats with pitching coach Jim Colborn in the dugout after leaving the game because of a broken fingernail.

Rusty Kennedy/Associated Press

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