Dodgers Can’t Be Saved From Sweep in 6-3 Loss

The Guns N’ Roses tune blared from the loudspeakers, the head-shaped graphics flashed on the scoreboard. Like a captive lion summoned at dinnertime, out trotted Eric Gagne from the bullpen.

But the subdued reaction of the Dodger Stadium crowd indicated that this was business unusual for baseball’s preeminent closer.

This is what the Dodgers were reduced to Sunday against the Cincinnati Reds: bringing in Gagne to pitch the ninth inning with a three-run deficit.

Game over, indeed.

Gagne set down the Reds in typical 1-2-3 fashion but could do nothing to bolster a struggling Dodger offense that continued to disintegrate during a 6-3 loss in front of 41,479 that gave Cincinnati its first three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium since 2001.

The Dodgers went one for six with runners in scoring position, completing a series in which they hit .091 in 22 chances in that scenario. Jose Hernandez’s pinch-hit, two-run homer in the seventh gave the Dodgers a glimmer of hope by closing the gap to 4-3 before reliever Guillermo Mota restored Cincinnati’s cushion by giving up two runs in the eighth.

The big breakdown came in the middle of an order that has turned anemic during the Dodgers’ season-worst four-game losing streak. Milton Bradley, Shawn Green, Adrian Beltre and Paul Lo Duca went a combined two for 15, giving the Dodgers little chance to produce big innings. The Nos. 3-6 batters have hit a combined .130 in the series and .150 in the last four games.

“We just didn’t get a whole lot offensively from the middle of our lineup, and that is something that has plagued us the last few days,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “It’s a long, long season, and you’re going to go through periods like this. This more than likely won’t be the last time it happens this year.”

Dodger starter Jeff Weaver pitched four shutout innings.

Problem was, they came after a four-run first inning in which the Reds compounded the problems of a pitcher who has compiled an 11.25 earned-run average in the first.

Adam Dunn hit a bases-loaded, two-run double to left, Jacob Cruz had a run-scoring groundout and Tim Hummel added an RBI single up the middle and the Reds scored all the runs they would need. Realizing that his fastball command was lacking in the first, Weaver (2-5) started throwing more off-speed pitches and shut down the Reds until leaving after the fifth.

By then the Dodgers trailed, 4-1, and had stranded three runners in scoring position. David Ross gave the Dodgers their first run, on a home run to right-center in the fourth, but Weaver grounded out to Cincinnati starter Aaron Harang (4-1), wasting Alex Cora’s two-out double.

Hernandez’s pinch-hit homer in the seventh, which followed a triple by Joe Thurston, ended a string of 18 consecutive at-bats dating to Friday in which the Dodgers had failed to drive in a runner from scoring position.

Mota pitched to Ken Griffey Jr. with two on and first base open in the eighth instead of facing Dunn with the bases loaded, and Griffey responded by ripping a two-run single to right-center.

Shortly thereafter, Gagne took the mound for the first time in a week, an indication of how things are going for the Dodgers. It was the first time in Gagne’s last 34 appearances that the team did not win.

Nonetheless, the Dodgers took some solace in the fact it was also a tough week for their rivals in the National League West and that they still led the second-place San Diego Padres by two games heading into a nine-game trip that begins Tuesday in Philadelphia.

“We’ll be all right,” Ross said. “We’re still in first place.”