LaCoss Stymies Dodgers : Baseball: Giants’ pitcher goes the distance, giving up only five hits and striking out four in a a 3-1 victory.

Making up is hard to do. Ask the Dodgers.

The Dodgers and Giants made up a game Monday that was rescheduled because of the lockout.

The result was a 3-1 Dodger loss to Mike LaCoss before 26,954 who saw the soggy Dodger offense get only five hits.

In the process, Fernando Valenzuela, making his home debut, fell to 0-2.

LaCoss (2-0) weathered brief uprisings in the middle innings, giving up the Dodger run in the sixth, but breezed after that, retiring the last seven batters.

The victory ended the Giants’ three-game losing streak, which matched their longest of last season. In all three games the Giant bullpen had failed to protect leads.

Pitching nine innings every time out is not necessarily his goal, LaCoss said, “but I had a goal set tonight to do it. We had a couple of tough ballgames. I didn’t want the same scenario. I wanted to be the guy to go out and say ‘I’m going to go nine.’ ”

The Giants scored quickly. Brett Butler led off with a soft liner to left that he hustled into a double. Kevin Bass, bunting to sacrifice, beat it out for a single and Valenzuela threw high to third, Butler sliding in safely. Will Clark then delivered the run with a fly to center.

Valenzuela settled down thereafter, retiring eight in a row into the fifth inning before the Giants got their last two runs. Jose Uribe led off with a single and was sacrificed to second by LaCoss. Bass got a two-out single to score a run as the Dodgers’ Kal Daniels bobbled the ball in the slippery outfield.

Clark then followed with a run-scoring double that got by a slipping right fielder Hubie Brooks, boosting Clark’s league-leading RBI total to 10.

Valenzuela wriggled out of a two-out, two-on jam in the sixth inning and was removed for a pinch-hitter, soon to have his second consecutive loss.

“Winning, losing is part of the game,” he said. “I’m doing my job, feeling good. I’ll keep throwing. What can you do--you keep going. I know the win’s coming sooner or later. It’s another day and another loss.”

Giant Manager Roger Craig said Valenzuela “pitched a good game. Our hitters were saying he had more zip than last year.”

Craig had little to say about his own pitcher’s performance. Although he had set a 100-pitch limit going into the game, he left LaCoss alone and allowed him to complete the game on 117 pitches. LaCoss was perfect through three innings and had a no-hitter through 4 1/3 before Mike Scioscia rapped a single through the box.

LaCoss’ only real trouble spot came in the sixth, when Daniels hit a one-out single, Eddie Murray reached first when left fielder Brad Komminsk lost his slicing liner in the lights and Brooks singled to load the bases. Lenny Harris got the run home with a fly to the warning track in left center, but LaCoss got Scioscia to end the inning on a ground out.

That was the Dodgers’ last threat. LaCoss gave up a single in the seventh, worked a perfect eighth and retired the side in the ninth on six pitches. He lowered his earned-run average to 0.64 in winning his second in a row.

“Roger asked me how I was doing around the sixth. I said fine,” LaCoss said. “He never checked with me again.”

Craig said he was not trying to avoid using his bullpen. “We’ve got a good bullpen,” he said. “LaCoss was pitching well tonight so I left him in. I figured with our day off Thursday, he’ll get an extra day’s rest.”

Dodger Notes

Catcher Rick Dempsey, who suffered back spasms Sunday in Houston, was placed on the 15-day disabled list. Team trainer Bill Buhler said Dempsey could be improved enough to play within a few days, but added: “There’s no way of knowing.”

Carlos Hernandez was called up from Albuquerque to replace Dempsey. Hernandez, 22, was hitting .231 after five games. Last year in 99 games at San Antonio, Hernandez hit .300 with eight home runs and 41 runs batted in. Hernandez apparently got the call instead of Darrin Fletcher because he bats right-handed. Dempsey is eligible to return May 1. . . . Kirk Gibson was moved from the 15-day to the 21-day disabled list. . . . Third baseman Jeff Hamilton received a cortisone injection in his right shoulder before the game. He didn’t play and his status is listed as day-to-day.

Pitching pairings as this series moves to San Francisco for two games: Ramon Martinez (0-0) vs. the Giants’ Scott Garrelts (0-0), 7:35 tonight; Mike Morgan (1-0) vs. the Giants’ Eric Gunderson (0-0) at 12:35 Wednesday.