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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 -- The Los Angeles Dodgers have taken this decision about as far as they can go.

It has been five days since Mark Ellis left a game because of a strained right quadriceps and he continues to feel something when he runs. Now that Carl Crawford is also nursing an injury -- a tight right hamstring -- Dodgers manager Don Mattingly says he is increasingly uncomfortable carrying two injured players on the 25-man roster.

It appears Ellis will go on the 15-day disabled list Friday when the Dodgers activate pitcher Clayton Kershaw from the bereavement list to pitch that night in San Francisco. Kershaw has been in Dallas to be with his family after the death of his father.

Crawford was out of the lineup for a second straight day Wednesday, but Mattingly said his injury doesn't appear serious enough to merit a stint on the DL. Ellis (.342) and Crawford (.308) were two of the hotter Dodgers hitters before the injuries.

To try to spark some action at the top of his lineup, Mattingly inserted Hanley Ramirez in the No. 2 spot. Ninety percent of Ramirez's at-bats last season came in the Nos. 3 through 5 spots in the lineup. Mattingly said he doesn't anticipate leaving Ramirez in the second spot permanently.

Star shortstop Troy Tulowitzki was back in Colorado's lineup after missing two games following a hand injury from an awkward headfirst slide into home plate in Sunday's game.

Here are the rest of Wednesday's lineups:

Colorado
1. Eric Young RF
2. Dexter Fowler CF
3. Carlos Gonzalez LF
4. Troy Tulowitzki SS
5. Michael Cuddyer 1B
6. Wilin Rosario C
7. Nolan Arenado 3B
8. Josh Rutledge 2B
9. Juan Nicasio RHP

Dodgers
1. Nick Punto 2B
2. Hanley Ramirez SS
3. Adrian Gonzalez 1B
4. Matt Kemp CF
5. Andre Ethier RF
6. A.J. Ellis C
7. Skip Schumaker LF
8. Juan Uribe 3B
9. Josh Beckett RHP

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 -- 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 -- 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 -- 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.

Clayton Kershaw is the kind of pitcher who can soothe a lot of stressed-out baseball fans and team executives.

You know what else can calm down a group of people whose heads are spinning over the sudden churning up of the Los Angeles Dodgers' pitching depth? Scoring some runs.

Mark Ellis, also known as the guy people forget when they are listing Dodgers hitters who aren't struggling, powered the Dodgers to a 7-2 win over the New York Mets at Citi Field with a pair of home runs Tuesday.

That little dose of good news did a bit to settle the stomachs of those worried over the day's earlier news about Chad Billingsley being scheduled to undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

Kershaw had shaky command, the Mets had patient at-bats and drove him out of the game after just five innings and 111 pitches. Kershaw did what he often does in such situations: he slogged along enough for his team to have a shot.

As good as Kershaw is, he's not an island unto himself. The Dodgers, as usual, are built around pitching and defense, but the breakdown in their pitching depth has been less troubling than three weeks of anemic offense. For $230 million, you ought to be able to buy a little more than the 29^th-highest scoring team in baseball.

"We can't just rely on Kersh when he's out there,” Ellis said in a postgame TV interview on KCAL. "Sometimes, when he's out there I think we think he's going to be so good that we relax a little bit. We need to go out and score runs no matter who's pitching for us."

So, assuming that Tuesday was an indication the Dodgers won't stay in their slumps forever -- and don't make any judgments off Wednesday, when they face phenom Matt Harvey -- this pitching situation isn't really all that worrisome. It seems as if it is because of the condensed timing of the injuries, but it's really not.

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LOS ANGELES -- In a surprise to many, Clayton Kershaw got hit around by the San Diego Padres. In a surprise to few, the Los Angeles Dodgers couldn't come up with clutch hits.

The convergence produced an embarrassing three-game sweep, at home, to a team that entered this series with a 2-10 record. San Diego outscored the Dodgers 22-7 in the three games.

Kershaw, who had been machine-like in his first three starts, gave up solo home runs in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings in Wednesday's 7-2 loss, the Dodgers' fifth in the past six games.

Matt Kemp continues to strand runners at an alarming rate, even when he's not in the original lineup. Pinch-hitting in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and one out, Kemp struck out against reliever Dale Thayer.

On a 3-and-0 count, Thayer threw Kemp a fastball that appeared to be a tad low and outside. Kemp flipped his bat and began walking toward first base, but plate umpire Jeff Kellogg called a late strike. Thayer hit virtually the same spot two more times, with Kemp waving feebly at strike three.

Kemp, who had a ninth-inning sacrifice fly, is batting .182 through 15 games.

Kershaw picked up his 1,000th career strikeout when Yonder Alonso swung through a 93 mph fastball in the second inning. That made Kershaw, 25, the second-youngest Dodgers pitcher to reach the milestone after Fernando Valenzuela.

Kershaw buzzed through the first three innings, but things started falling apart right around the time Nick Punto dropped a foul popup for an error in the fourth. Kershaw had already allowed a leadoff home run to shortstop Everth Cabrera. He walked Chase Headley and Alonso. After Punto started a double play from his knees with a nice diving play, Kershaw allowed an RBI single to Kyle Blanks, who later hit his first home run of the season.

The more vexing concern for the Dodgers is an offense that seems to sputter in similar ways night after night. If Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez aren't doing it, it doesn't get done. Crawford led off the third inning with a single and stole second, eventually scoring on Gonzalez's sacrifice fly.

That was about the extent of the Dodgers' output. They loaded the bases with two outs against San Diego starter Tyson Ross, but Skip Schumaker tapped one back to reliever Brad Brach to end the inning.

The only team with a worse OPS with runners in scoring position than the Dodgers' is the Angels (and it's close). The Dodgers are averaging 2.67 runs per game. In nine home games, the Dodgers have hit three home runs.

LOS ANGELES -- The last thing the struggling Los Angeles Dodgers hitters needed to see was a '4' on the scoreboard before they even came to bat.

On a cool, gusty Tuesday night, all the wind was taken out of Dodger Stadium in the first inning when Chris Capuano got hit hard in his return to the team's rotation. The Dodgers lost, 9-2, to the San Diego Padres, and they lost yet another starting pitcher. Capuano left the game in the third inning after straining his left calf covering first base.

The Dodgers have stumbled into a bit of an early rut, having lost four of their past five games, all inside the division.

The primary culprit has been a lack of clutch hitting, but it was hard to blame the offense for not rallying out of the hole Capuano dug. Making just his third appearance of the season and first start, Capuano allowed five runs on five hits and walked two in two innings.

Capuano might not have gotten out of the first inning if the Padres hadn't given up one out -- on Everth Cabrera's sacrifice bunt -- and lined one directly to Matt Kemp,; Jedd Gyorko's ball was arguably the hardest-hit of the inning.

The good news for the Dodgers is they were able to give some of their regulars a little rest after things got out of hand. L.A. managed just four hits against Jason Marquis and a couple of relievers. None of those hits came with men in scoring position and none came off the bat of Kemp, who is batting .185.

The two Chicago teams and the Los Angeles Angels are the only teams that have been worse with men in scoring position this season.

It's not easy pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers these days, at least not if you're looking for a low-stress line of work.

Clayton Kershaw was too much for another National League lineup, pitching into the eighth inning and holding the Arizona Diamondbacks to six hits and striking out nine Friday night. But, again, he was walking on a highwire -- no runs to work with -- and, after he began losing his command in the eighth inning, things fell apart with the bullpen.

The Dodgers lost 3-0 at Chase Field. Kershaw fell to 2-1.

The Dodgers thought they had injected some swagger and power into their offense with a series of trades late last season, but so far the results have looked a lot like the 2012 team's output. Back then, the Dodgers had James Loney at first base, Juan Rivera in left field and Dee Gordon at shortstop. The cost per run has gone up considerably since then.

The Dodgers stranded 10 more base runners. They left the bases loaded in the fourth inning and two runners on base in the eighth.

Only one team, the Miami Marlins, has scored fewer runs than the Dodgers' 27 in 10 games so far. Coming into Friday, the Dodgers were hitting .147 with runners in scoring position, worse than every team in the majors aside from those Marlins. When the Dodgers and Marlins meet, they might want to go straight to penalty kicks.

The difference, of course, is that the Marlins just stripped down their team to the nuts and bolts while the Dodgers are carrying around the most expensive collection of baseball players in baseball.

It's going to be slow going this season if the offense doesn't pick up its pace. The Dodgers learned before Friday's game they had lost No. 2 starter Zack Greinke for at least two months because of a broken left collarbone.

For a while, it seemed as he could, but Kershaw can't go it alone.

The Los Angeles Dodgers may have answered a few questions about team chemistry Thursday night, but they raised a bigger one when the team announced it has lost starting pitcher Zack Greinke to a fractured collarbone.

The injury came about during a fight with San Diego Padres outfielder Carlos Quentin in the sixth inning of the Dodgers' 3-2 win at Petco Park.

The tussle began when Greinke hit Quentin with a pitch in the sixth inning. That seemed to be in retaliation for a pitch San Diego starter Jason Marquis sailed up around the head of Matt Kemp earlier in the game, but might also have stemmed from a personal grudge between the two players.

Quentin took a couple of steps toward Greinke, then charged full-steam toward the mound. He and Greinke collided shoulder-first and bounced apart. Quentin wrestled Greinke to the ground. Afterward, Greinke was escorted off the field by trainer Sue Falsone. The umpires allowed Chris Capuano as many warmup pitches as he needed, indicating Greinke exited with an injury rather than after an ejection.

The Dodgers signed Greinke to a then-record six-year, $147 million contract in December.

As the rest of the players poured onto the field from the dugouts and bullpens, Matt Kemp came charging in from center field. At one point, he appeared to be mouthing, "Don't touch me!" to Padres manager Bud Black, who was pulling players away from one other.

A second dust-up erupted when Jerry Hairston Jr. charged toward the Padres' dugout. Legendary Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully paraphrased Kemp this time as saying, "That's fertilizer! That's fertilizer!" Josh Beckett restrained Kemp.

Kemp, Quentin and Hairston were all ejected. The Padres visit Dodger Stadium on Monday night.

Quentin and Greinke have a history that goes back at least four years, to when Greinke was with the Kansas City Royals and Quentin was with the Chicago White Sox. In an April 9, 2009 game, Greinke threw two pitches well inside to Quentin, one of which hit him. Quentin took a couple of steps toward the mound before being restrained.

According to ESPN Stats and Info, Quentin is the only player in the majors Greinke has hit with a pitch three times.

Quentin has been hit with pitches 116 times in his career and led the league in that department each of the past two seasons. One of those times was Tuesday night, when Dodgers reliever Ronald Belisario tagged him.

Juan Uribe, much-maligned the past two, hit the go-ahead, eighth-inning home run for the Dodgers in an emotionally charged game.

The Dodgers continued to struggle trying to hit in the clutch. They went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position. Adrian Gonzalez accounted for their only early scoring with a two-run home run in the first inning.

Kenley Jansen, filling in for Brandon League, who had to throw 34 pitches Wednesday, dominated the ninth inning for his first save of the season.

Chad Billingsley didn't seem to miss a beat after an eight-month layoff, and some struggling hitters began to shake off their slumps as the Los Angeles Dodgers held on for a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Petco Park Wednesday night.

Making his first regular-season start since Aug. 24, 2012, Billingsley held the Padres to a run and five hits through six innings. His return to the rotation could give the Dodgers a formidable staff. They have Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw lined up to pitch the next two games.

Equally important from the Dodgers' perspective, Matt Kemp -- batting .120 coming into the game -- went 2-for-5 and Luis Cruz -- hitless coming in -- had a pair of hits to raise his average to .091.

The engine of the Dodgers' scoring continued to be Carl Crawford, who hit the second pitch of the game for a home run and later added a triple off the top of the left-field wall. Crawford, in his first season with the Dodgers after two trying years in Boston, is batting .464 and has scored eight of the team's 24 runs.

Just a few months ago, the Dodgers didn't know whether they could count on Billingsley this season. He spent two stints on the disabled list last season because of a sprained right elbow. One option on the table was Tommy John surgery. Instead, Billingsley elected to rehab the injury and he has had few signs of trouble so far. He hit 92 mph several times Wednesday and, at times, employed a good curveball.

Billingsley, who went 6-0 with a 1.80 ERA in his final seven starts of 2012, began this season on the disabled list because of a bruised finger, an injury he sustained near the end of spring training.

The Dodgers' bullpen, which had been nearly perfect before getting roughed up Tuesday, had some wobbly moments. Closer Brandon League gave up two runs and three hits in the ninth. The Padres also scored a run on A.J. Ellis' passed ball that, had he caught it, would have ended the game. League got Yonder Alonso to fly out, with the tying run on second, to end it.

Some early-season trends continued Tuesday with one painful new twist for the Dodgers.

Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez continued to tug along the offense while the rest of the Dodgers' lineup stayed stuck on sluggish, but the bullpen's dominance ended decisively in a 9-3 loss to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

Crawford was on base three times and Gonzalez went 2-for-3 with an RBI. So far, Crawford has scored six of the Dodgers' 20 runs and Gonzalez has accounted for six of the team's 18 RBIs.

Juan Uribe, making his second start of the season at third base, hit a two-run home run to tie the score in the fourth inning.

Until Tuesday, Dodgers relievers had yet to give up a run and had allowed only one hit through their first 13 innings. Rookie Paco Rodriguez and veterans Matt Guerrier and J.P. Howell struggled as the Padres scored five runs in the eighth inning to blow the game open.

Josh Beckett made his second consecutive mediocre start to open the season, allowing the Dodgers once again to fall in an early hole. Wil Venable and catcher Nick Hundley took Beckett deep.

The Dodgers clogged the bases in the early innings but couldn't convert after they hit into rally-killing double plays in each of the first two innings.

Luis Cruz, 0 for his first 17 at-bats to start the season, was not in the lineup for the second straight game.