Dodgers miss opportunities

SAN DIEGO —  Manny Ramirez was in the on-deck circle.

It didn’t matter.

Orlando Hudson was determined to swing.

Hudson missed a would-be ball four that would have loaded the bases and struck out on the next pitch. Ramirez popped up the only ball reliever Edwin Moreno threw him in the strike zone.

The seventh inning was over. So was the game.

And the Dodgers, who beat Jake Peavy for the first time in more than five years on opening day, found themselves falling to the lowly San Diego Padres, 4-2, at Petco Park on Tuesday night.

“I was going to put the ball in play and get the big man up,” Hudson said. “It didn’t happen. I screwed that up.”

Did he think about taking in that situation?

“I could have,” Hudson said. “That probably would’ve been the best thing to do.”

Manager Joe Torre said he had no problem with Hudson’s at-bat, explaining that with a 3-and-1 count and Ramirez on deck, Hudson had to look fastball. Moreno threw him a changeup.

The Dodgers were limited to five hits and were two for nine with runners in scoring position.

Randy Wolf absorbed the loss in his return to the ballpark that was his home at the start of last season, as he was charged with four runs and six hits over 5 1/3 innings.

“We didn’t give him a whole lot to work with,” Torre said. “We didn’t do a whole lot offensively tonight.”

If there were any signs of promise for the Dodgers in this defeat, it was that the bullpen performed well on a night when Hong-Chih Kuo and Cory Wade were unavailable. Thirty-five-year-old Guillermo Mota, recently signed Will Ohman and previously unknown Ronald Belisario tossed a combined 2 2/3 scoreless innings.

The Padres went ahead, 1-0, in the second inning when an ill-timed leap at the right-field wall by Andre Ethier turned a likely double by Kevin Kouzmanoff into a triple. Scott Hairston drove in Kouzmanoff with a single to left field.

The damage could have been worse.

With one out and runners on first base and second base, Luis Rodriguez hit a ball sharply to Hudson at second base. Hairston rounded third as Rodriguez was being thrown out at first base, allowing James Loney to catch him in a rundown to record the final out of the inning.

The Dodgers had another close call in the third inning.

Brian Giles drew a walk to put men on first and second with one out. That brought up Adrian Gonzalez, whom the Dodgers elected to walk in the sixth inning the previous day with two on and two out. They did the same Tuesday.

Gonzalez’s walk loaded the bases but Wolf struck out Kouzmanoff and forced Chase Headley into an inning-ending groundout.

Ramirez changed the game an inning later.

He drove the first pitch of the inning for a double to right-center field, his first hit of the season. He was driven in by Russell Martin, who also doubled. Martin advanced to third on a single by Kemp and scored on a sacrifice fly by Casey Blake to put the Dodgers ahead, 2-1.

Wolf couldn’t hold the lead.

He started the sixth inning by giving up consecutive singles to Gonzalez and Kouzmanoff, then served up a two-run double by Headley that let the Padres reclaim the lead, 3-2.

Headley was on third with one out when Wolf was replaced by Mota, who was five seasons removed from his last game in a Dodgers uniform. Mota walked Nick Hundley and gave up a run-scoring sacrifice fly to Rodriguez that extended the Padres’ lead to 4-2.

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