BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : DODGERS : Daniels’ Homer Is a First for Scorer

Kal Daniels’ eighth-inning home run Saturday could have been ruled a four-base error because Barry Bonds, left fielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was neither leaping nor diving when the ball popped out of his glove and went over the fence. Instead, it gave Daniels a team-leading nine home runs. He ranks second with 37 runs batted in.

“I would have liked to have ruled it an error, but I’ve never seen that play before,” said Terry Bales, the official scorer.

“I’ve seen guys lose balls at the top of the wall, but never like that.”

Said Daniels: “I’ve seen that play before on a blooper tape. The bottom line is, I’ll take it.”

Bonds had no comment.

Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda said the key play in Saturday’s game might have been Alfredo Griffin’s run-scoring single to left field in the second inning that gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.

Lasorda said it was important because there were two out, and Griffin was hitless in his previous 13 at-bats.

“Teams that get two-out hits win a lot of games, and we’ve been doing a lot of that lately,” Lasorda said. “To have a guy who is not hitting anything come up big like that, those are the things that win games.”

In their last six games, the Dodgers have scored 16 runs with two out. They are 5-1 during that time.

The Dodgers have won three of the five games with the Pirates this season, but each team has scored 12 runs. The Dodgers have outhit the Pirates, 42-31. . . . Sources say the National League banned radio transmission between the press box and the dugout this week because umpires complained teams such as the Dodgers were examining television replays and relaying information about bad calls to the dugout. . . . Mickey Hatcher, a player-coach who has only played one game in the field for triple-A Albuquerque, has two hits in 15 at-bats for a .133 average. . . . Pedro Martinez struck out 25 in his first 24 innings for double-A San Antonio while recording a 1.50 earned-run average. Martinez is the younger brother of the Dodgers’ Ramon Martinez.