THIS IS JUST THE START.

Byline: STEVE DILBECK

Saw an amoeba Tuesday, a little one-cell wonder trying to evolve into something inside a Dodgers uniform.

How it ultimately takes form will remain uncertain for some time, which will come as great shock to those so eager to write the Dodgers off after an opening-day loss.

So many new players. So many questions to be answered. So many phone calls never made.

They're the defending National League West champions, and you don't know them.

They have no identity. They have no discernible personality. They don't even have names on their backs.

But in the words of that great philosopher of our time, Kobe Bryant, this is a process.

And it's best to allow any process time, including a near-complete makeover of the 2004 Los Angeles Dodgers.

Maybe the Dodgers really will be hold-the-nose lousy. Almost worse, maybe they'll brain-numbing average. And maybe they'll be very good.

Now even under a microscope, amoebas aren't the prettiest things to observe. And here these Dodgers are ... what?

A great-hitting team? A savvy team? A pitching-dominated team? A team that excels with speed, power, defense (OK, maybe we can eliminate that possibility), experience, grit?

Eight games into the season, the one personality trait showing definite signs of emerging as a team strength: fight.

Tuesday was the home opener. New team, ``new'' stadium, new broadcasters, new front-office types.

Same loud music. Same evil empire in the other dugout. Same idiot fans chanting, ``Giants (inhale really hard).''

Same comeback the last time they won a regular-season game here.

The Giants jumped to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first. All that opening-day pomp, and the crowd was deflated quicker than a teenager's ego. An entire stadium exhaled at once.

Only the team-that-didn't-sign-Adrian Beltre kept chipping away. Kept battling. Having good at-bats. Even when Pedro Feliz hit a three-run home run in the fourth that put the Giants up 8-3.

The team still learning who it is just marched on. Sure, there was some luck. Four San Francisco errors helped the cause.

But the Dodgers continually put themselves into position to capitalize on the errors until Milton Bradley's dramatic, bases-loaded, two-out single in the bottom of the ninth scored two runs to tie it - then win it when the drive went under the glove of left fielder Jason Ellison.

It was the Dodgers' third late-inning comeback in four games. It doesn't take many of those for a group of strangers to start figuring out who it is.

``I really feel like I'm beginning to get an idea of that right now,'' said manager Jim Tracy. ``As a group, they're unselfish. They're professional and understand the importance of each at-bat and have an awareness of the little things. It really jumped out today.''

The victory left the Dodgers 5-2 on the very young season, one game in front of the Giants and atop the N.L. West.

After Bradley's hit, the team rushed the field much like it had when Steve Finley hit his division-clinching grand slam last October.

Although 14 of them weren't here last October.

There's been that much turnover, creating that much uncertainty.

``With any new team, the first couple of months seem to be spent evaluating what you have,'' said general manager Paul DePodesta. ``The next two months you try to address whatever weakness you've identified. And then, hopefully, the last two months contending.

``In terms of the new players, it's really hard to say. We began to come together in spring training. These come-from-behind wins has allowed this team to come together.''

However these Dodgers develop, it unlikely will be as a cast of characters. The clubhouse is rife with potential church mice.

``We have a lot of different personalities in here, but a lot of them are quiet,'' said Jeff Kent. ``J.D. (Drew) is quiet. I'm quiet, until I snap. Milton is quiet.

``We have a lot of guys who are a different breed, waiting to come together. We're getting an identity and beginning to believe in each other.''

It won't happen today or next week, or even next month. But this amoeba of a team may be beginning to take form. Will become whatever it will, even if quietly in the clubhouse.

``One thing a lot of these guys have in common is they've known success,'' DePodesta said. ``They bring that expectation with them, and not only for themselves. And it doesn't necessarily have to be loud.''

Quiet will do. Character without characters works just fine. Time will tell, if allowed.

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Photo:

Jose Valentin, center, celebrates the Dodgers' ninth-inning rally to win Tuesday's home opener against San Francisco.

Keith Birmingham/Staff photographer