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LOS ANGELES -- If you found yourself frustrated -- or, perhaps, just bored -- watching Josh Beckett slowly, sloooooooooooooowly, put the Los Angeles Dodgers in an early hole Wednesday night, you were not alone.

Hours after he had left the game (and we do mean hours), Beckett admitted his month-long cold spell to start the season has begun to wear on him. It's May now, he's still winless and Wednesday night was his worst start yet -- a clunker that set the Dodgers on course for a 7-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies and took nearly four hours to complete.

Beckett (0-4, 5.24 ERA) once didn't really care about the size of the umpire's strike zone. He could throw a 95-mph fastball or some nasty breaking ball for a strike and get back to the dugout fast enough to keep his team warm. Now, when the umpire isn't giving him the corners to work with, he seems to spend hours trying to figure out ways to get hitters out. So far, he has come up with a lot of wrong answers.

As hard as it is to watch, imagine what it must be like to play behind.

"You can't leave your guys out there standing like I did in the first inning for like 40-45 minutes," Beckett said.

Beckett worked hard to refine his changeup this spring and he has thrown that pitch more than ever before in his career, about 18 percent of the time this season. But that alone hasn't made up for a fastball that has dipped about 4 mph over the past several seasons and a curveball that is only sporadically effective.

"Apparently, [hitters] have made an adjustment to me. It's a pretty good one, so I have to do something," Beckett said. "I can't just keep running out there and pitching like [crap]."

It's not as if the Dodgers should be panicking about their starting pitching, though they've churned through nine starters in a month. Clayton Kershaw and Hyun-Jin Ryu are working at the top of their games. Zack Greinke should be back in another month or so. Matt Magill looked like a major-league caliber arm while making his debut.

But as they set sail into a seemingly endless schedule, it would be reassuring to see Beckett settle into something like a comfortable groove. Though he got batted around most of last season in Boston, many people thought he would thrive in the National League. He looked solid late last year for the Dodgers but has failed to get through six innings in four of his six starts this year.

"It starts to creep on you, it's one outing and then it's another outing and then it's getting to be a little bit of a hole as you think about trying to climb out of that," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. "It's not going to be one start and you're back to .500. You have to pitch good for a while."

Beckett has half of that equation down. He pitched for quite a while Wednesday night even if he didn't get through many innings. The good part is a work in progress.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Dodgers are having trouble getting on a roll and the culprit, surprisingly, has been herky-jerky starting pitching.

Clayton Kershaw dominated Sunday. Ted Lilly stunk up the place Monday. Hyun-Jin Ryu dealt Tuesday. Josh Beckett looked like he didn't want to throw the ball Wednesday evening, setting a discordant tone in the Dodgers' 7-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies.

Beckett seemed frozen in amber for the early innings, launching the game on a glacial pace and putting Dodgers' defenders on their heels. The team showed some fight, but never really recovered.

The first three innings were drawn out over nearly two hours, much of that time Beckett simply staring in at catcher A.J. Ellis' mitt. He spotted Colorado a 3-0 lead when he allowed the first four batters of the game to reach base (one of them on a routine grounder that clanked off Hanley Ramirez’s glove for an error).

Beckett lasted only four innings, allowing five runs on five hits and three walks.

One month into the season, Beckett (0-4, 5.24 ERA) still is looking for his first win. He has had some good starts, notably that April 14 masterpiece in Arizona, but he has also failed to get through six innings in four of his six starts. The Dodgers are 1-5 when he pitches.

His short outing put some more weight on the Dodgers’ bullpen, which had to soak up six innings in a 12-2 loss Monday and had to mop up for Beckett two days later.

Ramirez was a little slow at times, too, such as when he stood at home plate admiring his opposite-field "home run" in the bottom of the first inning. It wasn’t a home run. The ball landed on the warning track and Ramirez had to kick it into gear to pull into second base standing up.

One encouraging trend has been the rapid return of Ramirez’s hitting. After missing nearly six weeks recovering from thumb surgery, Ramirez has two doubles and a home run and is 5-for-9 in two starts. In the team's other 25 games, all other Dodgers shortstops combined have two extra-base hits.

LOS ANGELES -- After the Los Angeles Dodgers' 6-2 win over the Colorado Rockies on Tuesday night, Dodgers employees ushered pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu back onto the field, where he traded memorabilia and posed for photo ops with global YouTube sensation Psy, known in the two mens' native South Korea as Park Jae-Sang.

Afterward, Psy -- his hair lacquered down, dark sunglasses over his eyes -- burst into the Dodgers' clubhouse with "Gangnam Style" blaring, prompting an uproar from Dodgers players. It was a bit of a circus. Imagine if the Dodgers had lost.

"I'm just really thankful that the game turned out the way it did. It would have been a really different situation if it had gone the other way," Ryu said through an interpreter afterward.

Everybody was in the mood for a little bouncy Korean pop music because of Ryu. He zapped the hangover from Monday's miserable 12-2 loss and buzzed through a tired and befuddled Rockies lineup, piling up 12 strikeouts.

Some people thought Ryu would struggle with the transition to a tougher league and a different culture. If anything, he's taking it to major league hitters, not the other way around.

Ryu touched 93 mph a couple of times early in the game, setting a tone that allowed him to use changeups and curveballs to greater effect later. The Dodgers have been impressed -- not so much with his raw stuff, but with his craftiness.

He often works backward. He can use breaking balls to get back in counts. He's hard to predict. For a 26 year old who was basically the Randy Johnson of the Korean Baseball Organization, he has shown surprising finesse.

"Especially if you get a younger guy who doesn't understand how the guy yo-yo's you a little bit, it's going to be trouble for you," manager Don Mattingly, seeing it from a hitter's perspective, said.

Ryu signed with the Dodgers just four months ago. He has made six major league starts, going 3-1 with a 3.41 ERA and 46 strikeouts in them. He might not feel entirely acclimated yet, but he's showing no signs of culture shock.

"I realize I'm in America every time I start. Every time I take the mound, I see how big these parks are and how many people come out," Ryu said. "But everything's been going well, and I'm really happy."

LOS ANGELES -- A night after playing their worst game of the season, the Los Angeles Dodgers finally looked like the total package.

Korean pop star Psy danced in the aisle next to the Dodgers' dugout (in front of a bored-looking Tommy Lasorda) in the fourth inning. All the while, his countryman, Hyun-Jin Ryu, was tying the Colorado Rockies in knots. Ryu struck out 12 batters in six innings of the Dodgers' 6-2 win in front of 47,602 fans at Dodger Stadium.

It certainly appears Ryu is making a comfortable transition from the Korean Baseball Organization. He is 3-1 with a 3.35 ERA after six starts, and he has just one fewer strikeout than ace Clayton Kershaw's 47 (with two fewer walks).

Ryu's dozen strikeouts were the most by a Dodgers rookie since another pitcher, Hideo Nomo, was making the leap from Japan. Nomo struck out 13 New York Mets on Aug. 20, 1995.

Meanwhile, Hanley Ramirez returned to the Dodgers' lineup -- on the night the Dodgers gave away his "I See You" bobbleheads -- and had a home run and double.

The Dodgers' offense has a deeper look with Ramirez back in the fold. It swarmed all over Colorado pitcher Jorge De La Rosa, improving to 8-0 against the left-hander by scoring six runs in the first three innings. Two scrappy utility guys, Jerry Hairston Jr. and Nick Punto, set the table at the top of the order, and the larger guys behind them cleared it.

Matt Kemp finally cut down his swing and had an RBI single in the first inning. Ramirez hit a towering solo home run to left in the third inning and lined a double to center in the fourth.

Ramirez had played in just two minor league rehab games after missing about five weeks recovering from surgery to his right thumb. He did look a bit awkward at times making throws from shortstop while wearing a flexible splint on his right hand.

LOS ANGELES -- Ted Lilly made his major-league debut with the Montreal Expos, which is another way of saying he's been at this a while.

The Dodgers are accustomed to carefully monitoring the 37-year-old pitcher's health on a start-by-start basis, so in a way this is nothing new. Lilly had felt a bit of tightness in his back after his previous start in New York last week and it returned in the first inning of Monday night's 12-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies, in which Lilly got hit around for three innings.

He'll be examined Tuesday and is questionable for his start this weekend in San Francisco. If he can't go, he'll likely be replaced in the Dodgers' rotation by rookie Matt Magill.

Lilly admitted he's concerned about making his next start.

"Well, I mean I think I have a few things to be concerned about, that being one of them and then just ineffectiveness, too," Lilly said. "A lot of guys in the clubhouse here aren't feeling as good as they'd like to, but you still expect to get the results you're looking for."

Lilly threw 71 pitches in three innings, allowing five runs on eight hits, including a couple of first-inning home runs. The Dodgers have used nine starting pitchers in the season's first month.

"We've got to find out if Teddy's healthy tomorrow and kind of make decisions from there," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said.

LOS ANGELES -- Maybe the Colorado Rockies are due to come tumbling painfully back to earth. And maybe the Los Angeles Dodgers aren't doomed to stay in this one-step-forward, one-step-back waltz with mediocrity all season.

But for one game in late April, the gap between the division's first place team and its fourth place team wasn't hard to spot.

The Dodgers had their worst pitching performance since last June in a 12-2 loss to the Rockies at Dodger Stadium on Monday night. Colorado stacked up 19 hits, or 13 more than the Dodgers could manage.

The snapshot of the Dodgers' night was utility man Skip Schumaker pitching the ninth inning (a scoreless one). He became the first Dodgers position player to pitch in a game since Mark Loretta in July 2009.

A tiny throng of fans left in the stadium chanted, "Let's go Skip!"

Ted Lilly, making his second start since coming off the disabled list, needed 71 pitches to get through three innings ... and he barely made it that far. The first four batters he faced had sharp hits, two of them home runs. Things got even messier, believe it or not, in the third, when Lilly walked in a run among other forgettable deeds.

Lilly, 37, had pitched well for five innings in the first start upon his return, last week in New York. He entered the season awkwardly, put on the 15-day disabled list against his wishes. Now, the Dodgers could be tempted to use rookie Matt Magill in Lilly's place next rotation turn. Magill pitched into the seventh inning in his major league debut Saturday.

Reliever Josh Wall couldn't live up to the standard that Lilly had set earlier. The Rockies scored seven times off Wall in two innings. Rockies pitcher Tyler Chatwood was 3-for-3 with two RBIs on three sharp singles in his first three plate appearances.

A Dodgers trainer visited both pitchers at some point in their outings, but neither pitcher left the mound due to injury.

As bad as things were, they could have been worse. Matt Kemp had a 92 mph fastball headed straight for his head in the fourth inning. He ducked out of the way and it appeared to carom off his shoulder and glance off his nose.

The few thousand fans that remained in the seventh inning were rewarded with a couple of little treats: Jerry Hairston Jr. homered to snap the shutout and Hanley Ramirez made his return to the field, taking a called third strike. Ramirez had thumb surgery March 22 and was activated from the DL on Monday afternoon.

LOS ANGELES -- One of the Dodgers' best pitching performances Monday night came from Skip Schumaker.

The utility guy.

With the Dodgers' pitching staff roiled by injuries and some heavy workloads by the bullpen, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly turned to Schumaker to pitch the ninth inning of the Dodgers' 12-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Monday.

Schumaker became the first Dodgers position player to pitch in a game since Mark Loretta did it in 2009. Schumaker played in that game, for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Schumaker hit the upper 80s with his fastball and actually threw harder than the Dodgers' starter, Ted Lilly. He allowed two hits and a walk, but got through the inning without allowing a run. That's more than could be said for Lilly, who allowed five runs on eight hits in three innings.

The few hundred fans left at Dodger Stadium chanted, "Let's go Skip!"

In fact, Schumaker's been called on to pitch before. In August of 2011, while with the Cards, he came in to pitch the ninth inning of an 11-0 game -- against the Dodgers. He gave up a two-run homer to Aaron Miles but did strike out two.

LOS ANGELES -- Clayton Kershaw called himself “awful,” and said, “the team won in spite of me,” the last time he pitched.

Three starts into spring training and three weeks before Opening Day, he was seething with frustration after the San Diego Padres got some hits and scored some runs off him, saying, “I’m definitely looking to have a good start one of these days.”

So, while Kershaw’s two-game “slump” might have been the high point of some pitchers’ major league careers -- he got through the fifth inning and held the opponent to three runs or fewer both times -- you can assume Kershaw wasn’t basking in his awesomeness coming into Sunday.

“Every time he struggles, he’s going to be particularly focused that next outing,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said.

The Milwaukee Brewers happened to stumble into Kershaw after two mediocre outings and they found his focus laser-like. Kershaw struck out 12 Brewers Sunday, hitters flailing at an assortment of mid-90s fastballs, breaking balls and changeups. It was a more complete arsenal than Kershaw had shown in recent weeks. He adjusts his approach to the team he is facing -- in this case, a lineup stacked with right-handed batters -- and is thus more likely to be on top of his fastball.

“It’s good to see Kershaw back to himself,” Carl Crawford said.

Kershaw, who picked up his first win since April 6, left Dodger Stadium shortly after Sunday's start without speaking to reporters. A team spokesman said he had a personal matter to attend to. His numbers did a good job speaking for him. Since the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles 55 years ago, according to ESPN Stats & Info, only six pitchers have struck out 12 batters without allowing a run or walking anybody in a start. The man Kershaw is relentlessly compared to, Sandy Koufax, did it four times. Nobody else has done it twice.

The next time Kershaw describes himself as “awful,” pity the team he’s about to face.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Dodgers continue to wait for their best player to emerge from a month-long slump, but their best starting pitcher looks like he's back.

Clayton Kershaw struck out 12 Milwaukee Brewers in eight innings Sunday in a 2-0 Dodgers win. It was Kershaw's first win since April 6.

Matt Kemp, meanwhile, came off a nice road trip to go 2-for-9 in this three-game series while misplaying at least two balls in center field. Kemp, who is batting .261 with one home run after 88 at-bats, seems to be hitting a lot of slow rollers to shortstop.

Kershaw (3-2) was coming off two mediocre starts, but he was nearly as dazzling Sunday as he was on Opening Day. Sunday was the fifth time he has struck out as many as 12 batters, the first since June 9 of last year.

Kershaw had failed to get out of the sixth inning against the San Diego Padres and New York Mets in his two previous starts. The Brewers had action in the first two innings, but after that, they couldn't touch Kershaw.

Jonathan Lucroy hit into an inning-ending double play to wipe out a two-on threat in the first inning, and Jean Segura led off the second with sinking liner that was misplayed into a double by Kemp.

Kershaw retired the next 18 batters before Carlos Gomez lined a double to left-center field leading off the eighth. Kemp seemed to get a late read on the ball, which short-hopped the wall. Kershaw helped erase that threat by snaring Martin Maldonado's sharp grounder and getting Gomez in a rundown.

The Dodgers didn't do much against Milwaukee starter Kyle Lohse, but Carl Crawford continued to put on a show at Dodger Stadium. The speedy leadoff hitter hit two home runs. Crawford is batting .391 in home games.

LOS ANGELES -- It's fair to say the Los Angeles Dodgers' owners didn't approve $210 million in upgrades to their team's pitching -- luring frontline starters Zack Greinke and Hyun-Jin Ryu and stacking up depth from here to Albuquerque -- hoping to have the sixth-best rotation in the National League.

But as April winds down, that's what they've produced so far. Dodgers starting pitchers have a 3.58 ERA -- not bad, but trending toward blah.

The semi-disappointing results, particularly of late, have been partially due to attrition. The Dodgers have used nine starting pitchers in 23 games.

The results are otherwise due to some forgettable pitching by some memorable names.

Until Saturday night, the Dodgers have had just one starter work into the seventh inning in the previous 13 days. They haven't had a starter win a game since Ryu on April 14.

All of which is why Matt Magill's better-than-solid major league debut Saturday night is more important than the backdrop -- a game blown by reliever Matt Guerrier. The Dodgers desperately need starting pitching depth right now and Magill's 103-pitch, seven-strikeout, four-hit performance in a 6-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers instantly adds some.

"I just wanted to come and show that I could do it," Magill said. "Whatever happens here … I have no control."

Magill, a 23-year-old from Simi Valley, Calif., could return to join his teammates at Triple-A Albuquerque as soon as Sunday. Or, he could be stashed for a while in the Dodgers' bullpen. The team won't necessarily need him to pitch again for a while, considering Chris Capuano should be back within the next week.

But he looks like a guy who can handle a big situation at a young age. When the game started speeding up on him in the first inning -- with the Brewers putting a couple of runners on base with two outs and Rickie Weeks at the plate on a 2-and-0 count -- catcher A.J. Ellis jogged out to the mound for a little consultation.

Magill got Weeks to ground out to shortstop and, aside from a third-inning traffic jam, he didn't have much trouble with an above-average lineup the rest of the night.

"I told myself, 'Hey, I've done this before,' pretend like I'm in Little League and just play," Magill said.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Dodgers got a nice pick-me-up for a depleted rotation when Matt Magill pitched into the seventh inning in his major league debut Saturday night.

But the feel-good story had an unhappy ending: Reliever Matt Guerrier allowed a pair of home runs in a 6-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

Magill had arrived at the Dodger Stadium clubhouse for the first time in his 23 years at about 3 p.m., having traveled the day before from Round Rock, Texas, where the Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate was playing.

Magill was an emergency replacement for pitcher Stephen Fife, who was scratched from Saturday’s start and put on the 15-day disabled list with shoulder bursitis.

Magill got into a jam in the third inning -- his own wide throw to second fueling a two-run Brewers’ inning -- but he was otherwise in command, striking out seven batters while allowing just four hits. The outing could be a one-and-done situation for Magill, as the Dodgers won’t need a fifth starter again, due to days off, before veteran Chris Capuano is ready to come off the DL.

Still, it will give the Dodgers some added confidence in their pitching depth. They have used nine starters in 23 games due to a long string of injuries.

Guerrier hung a breaking ball to Carlos Gomez and Martin Maldonado hit a fastball. Both two-run home runs traveled deep into the night, clearing the left-field fence.

Manager Don Mattingly had pulled Magill with two outs and nobody on in the seventh inning in favor of lefty Paco Rodriguez, who allowed an infield hit to Norichika Aoki. Three Guerrier pitches later and the Dodgers were trailing.

The Dodgers brought the winning run to the plate, and got the tying run to second, in the ninth after a walk and a Yuniesky Betancourt error. But shortstop Alex Gonzalez made a spinning, off-balance throw to get A.J. Ellis for the final out.

LOS ANGELES -- You can't judge a player's value by one good month. You can't say the Los Angeles Dodgers got the better of their trade last August with the Boston Red Sox, because Boston is 16-7 and in first place in the AL East, while the Dodgers have just pulled back to .500.

But for all the flak the Dodgers have taken for their lack of pop from a record payroll, you also can't pin any of the blame so far on that trade. Maybe it was the rare transaction that works out well for both teams, the Red Sox getting a much-needed reboot and the Dodgers buying a new $250 million engine for their sputtering offense.

So far, it certainly looks that way.

Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez have looked rejuvenated with a change of scenery. Crawford got back to swinging a dynamic bat in the leadoff spot Friday and Gonzalez continued to drive everybody in during the Dodgers' 7-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers had the 29th-ranked offense coming into Friday. Imagine where they'd be without these two. Crawford has scored 18 runs. The next-closest Dodger, Mark Ellis, has scored 10 and might be done scoring for a while, as he left Friday's game with what looked like a pretty nasty strained quadriceps.

Gonzalez has driven in 17 runs. The next-closest Dodger, Matt Kemp, has pushed across 10.

"I've seen both those guys play enough to where that's what I'm accustomed to them doing," Josh Beckett said. "Carl Crawford hands down is one of the toughest guys I ever competed against, and I've told you guys that. I think he's just getting back to the things he does well."

The other two guys from that trade, Beckett and Nick Punto, are also adding some value. Beckett has pitched well at times, though he's five starts into his 2013 season and he has yet to win a game. Punto is hitting .346 and has played skillful defense wherever the Dodgers have played him. If Ellis goes on the disabled list, Punto could be in for a larger share of playing time.

Friday, Crawford and Gonzalez brought an AL East kind of look to Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers applied relentless offensive pressure for one of the few times this season.

Crawford crushed a couple of balls on the Dodgers' last homestand, but they both died at the warning track in the cool, damp, breezy conditions that prevail at Dodger Stadium at night. He finally got one over the fence here with his fifth-inning home run to center field.

"I heard how the ball really doesn't travel here too much at night, but golly, I hit a couple of those balls hard and thought they had a chance," Crawford said. "It was nice to see one get out tonight."

LOS ANGELES -- For one of the few times this season, the Los Angeles Dodgers' hitters picked up the rest of the team.

The fielding got a little loose late in the game and Josh Beckett started wobbling as he pitched into the middle innings. Closer Brandon League barely got through another ninth inning with a lead intact. But Dodgers hitters applied relentless pressure throughout a 7-5 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers entered Friday with the 29th highest-scoring offense out of 30 major-league teams.

The joy of the win was dented by what appeared to be a significant injury to starting second baseman Mark Ellis, who pulled up while straining his right quadriceps running to first in the fifth inning. Ellis is batting .342 and is one of the steadiest second basemen in baseball, so losing him would be a bigger blow than it might at first seem.

Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford, the keystones of an August trade with the Boston Red Sox, have been the driving forces for most of the Dodgers' offense and that didn't change Friday. Gonzalez drove in three runs, and Crawford two. Crawford had a third-inning home run to center field and Gonzalez cranked a two-run double off the glove of Carlos Gomez in the seventh.

Beckett looked crisp in the early innings but ran into trouble in the fourth and fifth. He needed 97 pitches to get one out in the sixth inning and allowed home runs to Ryan Braun and Yuniesky Betancourt.

The Dodgers' defense started sputtering a few innings later. Matt Kemp overran a line-drive RBI single by Norichika Aoki in the seventh inning, allowing Aoki to take two extra bases. Then, Jerry Hairston Jr. made two errors while playing third base in the eighth. League committed the Dodgers' fourth error in three innings by throwing one away on Jean Segura's hit off League's leg in the ninth. None of the errors led directly to runs.

Andre Ethier hasn’t exactly killed left-handed pitching this season, but he is showing signs of improving the area of his game that has always been the weak spot.

Ethier came up with a clutch RBI single off lefty Scott Rice in the eighth inning of a 3-2 Dodgers win over the New York Mets at Citi Field on Thursday. That saved the Dodgers the embarrassment of what was a brutal offensive performance for most of the game.

Ethier is batting .264 against lefties this season and .211 against righties.

A two-run eighth sent the Dodgers home after a 3-3 road trip to Baltimore and New York, but it came too late to get lefty Ryu Hyun-Jin his third win. Ryu pitched seven strong innings, allowing just three hits and striking out eight batters.

“He really used his changeup very effectively. His slider is very good," Mets manager Terry Collins said of Ryu when speaking to reporters afterward. "We had a couple of opportunities and we couldn’t push anything over.”

The Dodgers struggled against one of the toughest pitchers in the league, Matt Harvey, on Wednesday and followed that up with an anemic performance against one of the league’s worst-performing pitchers Thursday. In his first four games, Mets starter Jeremy Hefner, 27, had a 1.786 WHIP and had allowed a league-high seven home runs. He entered Thursday with a 5.35 career ERA.

Only two Dodgers made any headway against Hefner. Juan Uribe had three walks and Matt Kemp had two of the Dodgers’ three hits off him.

Kemp has had more hits on this six-game road trip than he had in the first 15 games of the Dodgers’ season. His rebirth started slowly, with some soft hits in Baltimore, but he seems to have regained his stroke. He homered for the first time Wednesday and was 2-for-3 with a run scored and RBI Thursday.

Kemp made a poor base running decision in the seventh inning, when he attempted to tag up and advance on Ethier’s fly ball to right field. Marlon Byrd threw Kemp out by about six feet.

With Brandon League struggling, Kenley Jansen’s performance will raise the question of who should be the Dodgers’ closer. Jansen allowed the first two batters to reach base in the eighth inning, but got out of the jam. He struck out Byrd with a letter-high 95-mph fastball to end it.

League blew his first save Wednesday and allowed a solo home run to Ike Davis leading off the ninth Thursday. He got through the inning without further trouble while picking up his sixth save.

The Dodgers looked as if they were figuring out creative ways to win, but a late-game meltdown cost them their second three-game winning streak of the season Wednesday night at Citi Field.

Matt Kemp hit his first home run of 2013 -- an opposite-field wall scraper -- and Mark Ellis and Jerry Hairston Jr. made clutch defensive plays late in the game, but the New York Mets' David Wright singled off Dodgers closer Brandon League with two outs to drive in the tying run in the ninth.

In the 10th, Jordany Valdespin needed only a fly ball (against a two-man outfield), but he instead ended the game with a grand slam off Josh Wall and the Mets escaped with a 7-3 win.

Pitcher Clayton Kershaw, one of the team's best bunters, had pinch-hit in the 10th inning and successfully advanced catcher A.J. Ellis, but Carl Crawford struck out and Skip Schumaker ended the inning with a groundout.

Ted Lilly, making his first start since last May, pitched five strong innings and the Dodgers had good enough at-bats against Mets phenom Matt Harvey to drive the hard-throwing right-hander out of the game after six innings. Harvey was bidding to become the 14th pitcher in the live-ball era to go at least seven innings and give up four or fewer hits in five straight starts.

Kemp's home run narrowly cleared the right-field wall and was originally ruled a triple after a security guard interfered with the ball just above the fence line and it bounced back into play. Umpires looked at the replay and awarded Kemp his first home run after beginning the season with 81 homerless plate appearances.