Dodgers Will Take 4-2 Trip

ST. LOUIS —  They came, they sodded, and, even after Wednesday’s loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, they headed home with strong feelings that they had conquered most of their deep-seeded road phobias.

One for the road? How about 4-2 for the trip?

The Dodgers return home from this six-game trip in better shape than when they left, and a 5-4 defeat to the Cardinals before 27,051 at Busch Stadium was going to bring them down from that six-day affirmation.

Considering their 6-16 road record and 0-9 artificial turf mark heading into the trip, it could have been worse, so much worse.

Remember April?

“Four and two? I certainly think anybody would take that,” second baseman Jody Reed said. “We were in a position to make this a great road trip, but it still turned out to be a very good road trip.

“I don’t think anybody in here is disappointed.”

The Dodgers, their lucky patches of grass in the dugout the whole way and looking worse for the wear Wednesday, won the first two games of both series, beginning in Pittsburgh, then lost the finale of each.

The trip home began suddenly and surprisingly when Eric Davis, in as a pinch runner in the ninth, was thrown out trying to steal second, ending his personal string of 34 consecutive steals without getting caught.

Davis hadn’t been thrown out attempting to steal since April 24, 1992. This time he was gunned down on a shoulder-high throw by Erik Pappas, who, to put it kindly, will never remind anybody of Johnny Bench in his prime.

“A bad throw ended up being a good throw,” said Davis, who probably would have been safe if the throw was lower and Ozzie Smith could not have brushed him as he went by.

The Dodgers had narrowed the Cardinals’ lead to one in the ninth inning against reliever Lee Smith on a triple by catcher Mike Piazza and a run- scoring single by right fielder Cory Snyder, who made his own bid for the permanent starting job by going four for four with a home run and two runs batted in.

Snyder’s third home run, against Cardinal starter Donovan Osborne (3-2) in the second inning, ran the Dodgers’ home run streak to at least one in 10 consecutive games.

Davis ran for Snyder in the ninth, and was trying to move into scoring position for second baseman Jody Reed to deliver.

“I wasn’t worried about the streak,” said Davis, who missed his second consecutive start due to the flu. “If I was worried about the streak, I wouldn’t have tried to steal.”

He tried, Smith tagged him out, and soon afterward the Dodgers packed their things for home, 6 1/2 games out of first, sitting in fourth place and set to play the second-place Atlanta Braves at Dodger Stadium.

Try and tell Manager Tom Lasorda the week was not an unqualified triumph.

“Two out of three in Pittsburgh and two out of three in St. Louis would be sufficient for anybody,” Lasorda said. “Yeah, it was a good road trip.”

The Dodgers scored first, but got into the come-from-behind situation early, when starter Pedro Astacio (3-4) gave up three runs--including Gregg Jefferies’ long two-run home run--in the first inning.

Astacio, who gave up seven hits and four runs in his six innings and was far less sharp than in his last, winning outing, left the game with the Dodgers trailing, 4-3.

Former Cardinal reliever Todd Worrell, in his first appearance at Busch Stadium since signing with the Dodgers, got a quiet reaction from the crowd and gave up an unearned run because of shortstop Jose Offerman’s error in the seventh.

That run proved to be the losing margin.

“We were in every game,” Snyder said. “Today we hit the ball good, we just hit a couple right back at Donovan, which he got, a couple at Ozzie, which easily could have fallen in.

“I still think things are up. We still had a good road trip.”

They have had worse.