Give and Take as Dodgers Get Split in Atlanta : Baseball: After gift-wrapping Braves’ victory in opener, 3-2, they win behind Morgan, 8-2.

ATLANTA —  Mike Morgan, who has surprised the baseball world with his sudden ability to win games, showed Friday night that he can help teammates awake from a nightmare.

A couple of hours after the Dodgers’ sloppiest loss of the season, Morgan made it all better by throwing a five-hitter in helping them defeat the Atlanta Braves, 8-2, in the second game of a doubleheader.

In the first game, in what Manager Tom Lasorda called the worst loss this season, Jim Gott walked pitcher Kent Mercker with the bases loaded in the 10th inning to give the Braves a 3-2 victory.

Before a howling crowd of 43,399 at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, the Dodgers saw their losing streak extended to three games before ultimately saving face thanks to Morgan’s third consecutive victory, giving him a 9-5 record.

“I knew we had lost a tough game, I saw what was going on in the clubhouse, I saw all the guys dejected, I knew what I had to do,” said Morgan, who was backed by Juan Samuel’s tiebreaking two-run single in the sixth inning and Chris Gwynn’s three-run home run in the eighth.

“I know that a loss like that can take it all out of you and cost you in the second game,” Morgan said. “I went out there knowing we couldn’t quit. And we didn’t.”

Lasorda walked through the clubhouse screaming after the first game. A couple of players locked themselves in a storage room. The others stared at the floor and kicked at the dirty socks.

“In all my years in baseball, I have never seen a game won like that first one,” Lasorda said after more than six hours of baseball. “To walk the pitcher with the bases loaded? Never . . . I feel a little bit better now, but I still can’t get that first one out of my belly.”

The loss was made worse because it was the Dodgers’ second consecutive defeat in which they were one out from victory. The Dodgers had three chances to win with two out in the bottom of the ninth, but blew all three. Gott sent the game to extra innings by giving up a two-out, run scoring single by Terry Pendleton.

With Jay Howell on the disabled list because of a sore elbow, Lasorda went through five relief pitchers in the final three innings while Mike Sharperson was tying the score with a run-scoring single in the eighth and Stan Javier was giving the Dodgers the lead with a home run in the ninth.

But as it turned out, Lasorda used his best relievers too early, and his worst relievers too much.

The game ended with the sellout crowd dancing in their seats and the Braves dancing behind home plate. Gott walked off the mound, hat in hand, head down, while many of his teammates sat motionless in the dugout.

“That’s the worst way to lose a game,” said Mercker, who was batting because the Braves had no pinch-hitters left. “I’d rather give up a 500-foot home run than walk a guy with the bases loaded.”

When Mercker came to the plate with two out, he was hitless in five at-bats in parts of two major league seasons. Four times he struck out. Once he grounded to second base.

“I had not even been on base anywhere since 1989,” Mercker said. “I don’t even know where the strike zone is.”

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, neither did Gott, who threw him a ball, a strike, two more balls, a strike, and then a high-and-outside ball four. The bat never left Mercker’s shoulder.

The walk should not have been a huge surprise, either. Gott started the inning by walking Ron Gant, then balked him to second when he changed his mind about throwing to first in mid-windup.

Gott intentionally walked Jeff Blauser with four pitches that were so off target, two of them were nearly strikes.

Gott, who has walked 22 in 28 1/3 innings this season, has put men on base in 21 of his 25 appearances this year.

He ended the ninth inning by failing to clean up the mess left by struggling bullpen mate Kevin Gross, who has a 5.19 earned-run average as a reliever.

Gross started the ninth even though John Candelaria ended the eighth by fooling pinch-hitter Mark Lemke into a double-play grounder. Lemke was the only batter Candelaria faced.

“We have to make sure we do not overuse Candy,” Lasorda said of Candelaria, who has pitched more than one inning in a game only once this season.

So without a save in nearly seven years, Gross promptly walked three. The two pitches of his final walk were delivered by left-hander Dennis Cook, recently arrived from triple-A Albuquerque.

In stepped Pendleton, a switch-hitter who bats 27 points better against right-handed pitching than left-handed pitching. But Lasorda, in keeping with his style of managing, went with experience by immediately replacing Cook with Gott.

“I wanted Gott to face Pendleton,” Lasorda said. “I wanted the veteran in there. Do you know anybody else I could have brought in?”

The move, like the game, backfired when Pendleton hit Gott’s second pitch to right field to score Jeff Treadway to tie the score.

“After that first game, it was like we were in a daze,” Gwynn said. “But then we heard what Tommy had to say and we buckled up and went back out there. We forgot about it because we had no choice but to forget about it.

“Maybe that was the key to tonight. We didn’t have time to think.”