TAKING IT FROM THE TOP FURCAL, LOFTON COMBINE TO TIE SCORE IN THE NINTH DODGERS AT OAKLAND, LATE.

Byline: TONY JACKSON Staff Writer

OAKLAND -- Presumably, there are small island nations whose gross domestic products don't equal what the Dodgers spent last winter to upgrade the top of their lineup. For that eight-figure investment, the club has gotten a glaring lack of offensive production from the defensively challenged Rafael Furcal and a performance from Kenny Lofton that has been solid enough but might have been far better had he been batting more often with Furcal on base.

But in the ninth inning of Saturday night's game, the less-than-dynamic duo gave the Dodgers a well-timed reminder of just what the club thought it was getting when it snatched both of them off the free-agent market.

They tied the game for the Dodgers, who remained deadlocked with the Oakland A's at 4-4 through 13 innings before a sellout crowd of 35,077 at McAfee Coliseum.

Furcal, who has been battling a horrendous slump since an aberrational, two-homer game against the New York Mets a while back, found a way to get on base anyway, working a six-pitch walk from Oakland's Huston Street. That brought up Lof ton, who hung tough until Street had thrown six more pitches and Furcal had stolen second base.

Lofton then pulled Street's seventh offering past first baseman Dan Johnson and up the rightfield line, scoring Furcal easily. Lofton pulled into third base with his seventh triple of the season, and the Dodgers had tied the game with t wo outs in the ninth against a closer dependable enough to have received the American League's Rookie of the Year award last season.

To that point, Furcal still had just three hits in his past 34 official at-bats. But he had walked, stolen second and scored a critical run in each of his past two plate appearances.

To that point, Lofton was 3 for 5 in the game, 4 for 8 in the first two games of the series and batting .319 for the season. The pair had a chance for more heroics against Brad Halsey in the top of the 11th, but each popped up to strand Russell Martin on third.

Had the Dodgers not made a series of inexplicable mental mistakes on the bases, and had starter Derek Lowe not suffered what appeared to be a mental meltdown in the bottom of the eighth, those clutch performances by Furcal and Lofton mi ght not have been necessary.

After seven innnings, Lowe was cruising through what arguably was his finest performance of the season, and he was doing it with a 3-1 lead. He had given up just five hits, had recorded an astounding 14 groundball outs and had retired 1 0 in a row at one point and eight in a row at another. The A's had hit only two balls to the outfield.

A spirited, seven-pitch battle with Bobby Kielty to begin the eighth resulted in Kielty drawing a walk on a pitch Lowe was sure had been a strike. So sure, in fact, that he shouted an obscenity at plate umpire Tom Hallion that on a televised replay was easy to lip-read.

From there, the ceiling fell in.

Marco Scutaro hit Lowe's next pitch for an RBI double, making it 3-2. Jason Kendall beat out an impossibly slow roller to third, with Scutaro taking third. After Nick Swisher's grounder advanced Kendall but not Scutaro, Adam Melhuse pop ped up, and Lowe appeared on the verge of pitching out of trouble.

But after an intentional walk to Eric Chavez, Bobby Crosby lined a double up the leftfield line, just above leaping third baseman Ramon Martinez. That gave the A's a 4-3 lead and sent Lowe to the clubhouse.

And set the stage for Furcal and Lofton.

Also setting the stage, though, were those wasted opportunities on the bases.

Martinez led off the fifth with a triple, but after Furcal grounded weakly to third, Martinez got caught in a rundown on a dribbler by Kenny Lofton that appeared to be a contact play. Martin led off the sixth with a double, but moments later was picked off second base, not by A's pitcher Kirk Saarloos but by Kendall, the catcher.

And the most bizarre screwup of all came in the eighth, just after Matt Kemp's sacrifice fly gave the Dodgers a 3-1 lead. With Andre Ethier at the plate, Jeff Kent broke from first and appeared to have second stolen easily. But Ethier s wung at the pitch and flied to left.

Kent then stood motionless on second as Swisher caught the ball, as Swisher fired it in to Johnson at first base, and as Johnson took three steps to the bag and doubled off Kent.

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Derek Lowe was masterful into the seventh inning, when he imploded after walking Bobby Kielty.

Ben Margot/Associated Press

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DODGERS at OAKLAND

-Tony Jackson