DODGERS STRESSED, STRUGGLE : THREE BLUNDERS COSTLY AS L.A.'S SLIDE CONTINUES FLORIDA 4, DODGERS 3.

Byline: Eric Noland Daily News Staff Writer

The lengthy team meeting Saturday night was followed closely by a shouting match in the shower room.

Seventeen hours later, several Dodgers said they welcomed both events - the first to help them gather their wits, the second to rekindle some of their passion.

Well, it was an ambitious expectation, but the actual result had more the look of overloaded brain circuitry. The newly fortified Dodgers took the field against the Florida Marlins on Sunday night . . . and proceeded to make another fine mess of things.

They lost 4-3 in the ninth inning. And they lost ugly. Yet again.

``I think there's some pressing going on. . . . We're making mistakes we shouldn't make,'' said third baseman Todd Zeile, who contributed a colossal blunder - the first of three for the Dodgers on the night.

So the self-analysis continues, delivered with expressions of exasperation and disgust.

``Guys aren't getting jobs done, and I'm a big part of that,'' Zeile continued. ``There's an intense feeling, a do-or-die feeling. In April, we shouldn't have that.

``I think we should loosen up and go out and show we're as good a team as we're expected to be, instead of being afraid we're going to disprove that.''

Loosen up. Go out and play. Concentrate on the tasks at hand. Those had been the objectives in the wake of Saturday night's tumult. Instead, the Dodgers went out and played as if they were wound tighter than a backstop wire.

``It's the same thing every night,'' manager Bill Russell said on the occasion of the Dodgers' sixth loss in their past seven games, which pushed them five games behind San Francisco in the National League West. ``They can't be too tight.

``There's no use talking about it. They know.''

And yet the botched plays continue to mount.

In this game, with runners at second and third in the first inning, Zeile mistakenly thought the bases were loaded when he fielded a two-out grounder. The eight-year veteran casually trotted over to third and stepped on the bag - as a run crossed the plate.

Later, in the seventh, rookie Wilton Guerrero bolted around second base on a hit-and-run play, realized he had to retreat when Greg Gagne popped up to short - but neglected to retouch second on his return to first. He was doubled off second as he jogged into first base.

And in the ninth inning, the Marlins' Cliff Floyd led off with a grounder several steps to the left of second baseman Nelson Liriano. The veteran infielder reached for the ball - and had it skip off the thumb of his glove and dribble into shallow right field.

Floyd ended up on second base, then scored the game-winning run when Edgar Renteria rifled a single through the right side and right fielder Raul Mondesi's throw to the plate arrived slightly up the first-base line.

Liriano's flub was ruled a double by the official scorer, which even Russell characterized as ``lenient.''

And the Dodgers, who were enjoying the promise of a 10-4 start as recently as April 18, were left to sift through the wreckage of the loss that pushed them to 11-10.

Zeile's postgame comments bordered on masochism. ``I've never made a mental mistake that bonehead and that costly,'' he said. ``I felt like a complete idiot.'' It was ``bad, costly, stupid, whatever you want to call it. It's not something any big-league player should do, and certainly not an eight-year veteran.''

Guerrero, who had reached base with a pinch-hit walk after being benched for a second straight game, spoke to reporters only long enough to say that he knew the rule about retouching a base but simply forgot to do so.

Liriano verbally threw up his hands. ``That's my job right there (to field the ball),'' he said. ``That's what I want to do. If it doesn't happen, what can you do after? Nobody wants to make mistakes.''

And to think the day dawned with such bright prospects.

The Dodgers declined to discuss specifics of the previous night's shower-room incident - other than to extol its potential benefits.

``If we can take some of the emotion we had in the locker room and take it onto the field, we'll be all right,'' said relief pitcher Todd Worrell. ``It creates controversy, but that's good. It wakes guys up. It makes them pay attention to what's going on on the field.

``I don't have any problem with that. There are times when things like that have to happen, and then you move on.''