FEELING A SENSE OF DEJA BLUE FORMER RED SOX ENJOYING FAMILIAR SUCCESS FOR L.A. DODGERS 3, WASHINGTON 1.

Byline: TONY JACKSON  Staff Writer

WASHINGTON -- A sense of deja vu was rendered in three-part harmony Saturday.

First there was Derek Lowe, who delivered another masterful performance in pitching the Dodgers to a 3-1 victory over the Washington Nationals in front of 26,867 fans at RFK Stadium.

Then there was Nomar Garciaparra, who continued his uncanny streak of late-inning heroics with the decisive hit, an RBI single on the first pitch thrown by reliever Gary Majewski in the top of the eighth inning.

Finally, there was Dodgers manager Grady Little, who had seen Lowe and Garciaparra come through for him so many times during the two seasons he managed them in Boston. Now he is watching them come through for him again, this time without the additional baggage of working in what is arguably baseball's biggest fishbowl.

Lowe has given up a run on eight hits over his past two starts, each of which lasted seven innings. Over his past 14games, Garciaparra has a ridiculous 12 hits in 14 at-bats from the seventh inning on.

Are you listening, New England?

``Derek Lowe has been outstanding,'' Little said. ``In the third or fourth inning, I told (pitching coach Rick) Honeycutt that he looked very similar to what he was that day in Boston when he threw his no-hitter. He has everything working right now, and we made some good plays behind him. He just did an outstanding job out there.''

As for Garciaparra?

``I'm not going to try to explain it,'' Little said. ``I just want him to keep it going. He is as good as I have ever seen him.''

Asked if Little's comparison to his 2002 no-no against Tampa Bay was valid, Lowe (3-3) came up with a perfectly logical reason why it wasn't.

``I gave up a hit in the first inning,'' he said.

True enough, but he would give up just one more through the first six innings.

In the seventh, after the Dodgers had failed to break through for more than one run against Nationals pitcher Shawn Hill, who is coming off Tommy John surgery and was making his first major-league appearance since 2004, the lack of run support finally caught up with Lowe. The first three batters all hit safely, with Marlon Anderson singling sharply up the middle to score Nick Johnson with the tying run.

After Damian Jackson popped up a bunt attempt, Lowe got out of the jam by picking off Ryan Zimmerman at second after Zimmerman took too large a running lead and getting Brian Schneider to ground out weakly. That kept the score 1-1 and set the stage for Garciaparra's heroics.

Rafael Furcal greeted Nationals reliever Mike Stanton (1-5) with his third single to start the eighth, giving the Dodgers shortstop a five- game hitting streak and three consecutive multi-hit games. Kenny Lofton followed with a perfectly placed bunt, barely beating Schneider's throw to first.

That brought up Garciaparra, but first, it brought out Nationals manager Frank Robinson and brought on reliever Gary Majewski. Majewski threw exactly one pitch, a slider, to Garciaparra, who drove it through the hole between short and third to put the Dodgers ahead to stay.

``I just really wanted to stay within myself and not get crazy and say `I have to get a hit here,''' Garciaparra said. ``I hit a line drive (to left) the at-bat before that, and I just wanted to go off that. I was able to get good wood on it, and it found a hole.''

Danys Baez pitched out of a two-on, one-out jam by getting Jose Vidro, the National League's leading hitter, to ground into a double play in the eighth. The Dodgers got a crucial insurance run in the ninth, when Jackson, who had just moved from center field to shortstop, one-hopped the throw to first on Olmedo Saenz's two-out grounder, allowing Saenz to barely beat it out and Andre Ethier to score.

Takashi Saito pitched the ninth for his second save, capping Jackson's dubious afternoon by freezing him on a called third strike to end the game. Little offered, well, little in the way of an explanation for why he used Baez in the eighth and Saito in the ninth.

The Dodgers (28-21) won for the eighth time in their past nine games.

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3 photos, box

Photo:

(1) Dodgers starter Derek Lowe went seven innings and gave up one run on five hits. Lowe's performance Saturday prompted manager Grady Little to compare it to Lowe's 2002 no-hitter as a member of Boston.

(2) Nomar Garciaparra singles in the winning run during the eighth inning for the Dodgers.

Jamie Squire/Getty Images

(3) SEO 

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DODGERS AT WASHINGTON

- Tony Jackson