Dodgers fail to contain Cabrera

MIAMI — Before the Dodgers opened their four-game series with the Marlins, Manager Grady Little made it clear there was one Florida player who wouldn’t get a chance to beat his team.

“I think that goes without saying,” he said nonetheless. “It’s going to be that third baseman.”

So much for that plan. Because that third baseman, Miguel Cabrera, didn’t just beat the Dodgers on Tuesday, he pummeled them, belting a mammoth two-run home run off the facing of the upper deck in the fifth inning, then delivering the game-winning single with one out in the ninth to give Florida a 6-5 win.

But while those at-bats may have won the game, they weren’t the most pivotal ones. In those trips to the plate, the Marlins didn’t even need to swing.

The first three came in the fourth when Dodgers starter Mark Hendrickson, having held the Marlins to a second-inning homer by Miguel Olivo, walked the bases loaded. And though he got out of the inning without giving up a run, he needed 36 pitches to do so.

“That was the difference in the game,” Little said. “Our starting pitcher was cruising along there pretty good and all of a sudden he turns up a 36-pitch inning. It was a heavy load on him and I think it caught up with him there in the fifth.”

That’s when the Marlins scored four times in a wild inning that included a triple, two doubles, two errors and a 447-foot homer by Cabrera, erasing a 4-1 Dodgers lead built on a Jeff Kent single and a groundout by Luis Gonzalez in the second and run-scoring doubles by Russell Martin and Andre Ethier on consecutive pitches in the fifth.

“In the fourth inning I became a thrower,” Hendrickson said. “It was kind of a self-induced situation. I abandoned my curveball, for whatever reason.

“But give them credit. They hit some pitches that were not quality pitches.”

The Dodgers tied it in the eighth when Ethier singled on the infield for his third hit and scored on a wild pitch, setting the stage for another crucial Marlins at-bat in the ninth that didn’t involve any swinging.

Eric Reed led off the inning with a single off reliever Jonathan Broxton and moved to second on a wild pitch, bringing Dan Uggla to the plate -- and Cabrera to the on-deck circle -- with first base open.

“I was watching him swing the bat over there in the on-deck circle and I’m wondering why he was even getting loose,” said Little, who had already decided to walk Cabrera.

But Uggla didn’t give him the chance, taking two borderline pitches with two strikes to draw the walk and fill the empty base.

“That was a great at-bat,” Florida Manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “If he doesn’t get on there ... I don’t think they pitch to Cabrera.”

After the walk Little really didn’t have a choice and Cabrera made him pay, lining the first pitch into center field for the second walk-off hit of his career.

The loss didn’t cost the Dodgers in the standings: San Diego also fell Tuesday, leaving L.A. alone atop the National League West.

But it was the second loss in three games for the Dodgers’ once-brilliant bullpen and unless they can beat both Dontrelle Willis and Sergio Mitre over the next two days, they’ll limp back home Thursday night with their first losing road trip of the season.

*

[email protected]