Cubs Get the Drop on the Dodgers, 2-1 : Baseball: L.A. is held to six hits by Castillo and three relievers. Buechele hits a home run for Chicago against Astacio, who gives up four hits in six innings.

CHICAGO —  About the most exciting thing that happened in the Dodgers’ 2-1 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Friday came in the first inning when Ryne Sandberg hit a high pop fly to short left field.

Jose Offerman circled beneath it, called it, waved off Eric Davis, then dropped it . . . into Davis’ glove.

“I’ve always wanted to do that,” Davis said. “Ever since I saw Pete Rose . . . on a catch like that in 1980, I have always charged the ball even when I’m waved off just to make sure. When I saw it pop out of Offy’s glove I just grabbed it. I’ve never made a play like that before.”

Other than that, the Dodgers’ 2-1 defeat before an afternoon crowd of 39,210 was fairly routine. They had a few scoring opportunities, but stranded the runners. They looked flat, but said they weren’t. The wind was blowing in, but as several players pointed out later, it was blowing for both teams.

“We were pumped up with air, but when you don’t score runs it just looks like we are flat,” Davis said. “We can’t do anything about how it looks.”

The Dodgers’ Pedro Astacio (7-6) held the Cubs to four hits through six innings before leaving for a pinch-hitter in the seventh. He made a couple of mistakes, the most notable when he hung a pitch high over the plate and Steve Buechele lined it over the left-field wall to put the Cubs ahead, 1-0, in the third inning.

“That pitch was up, it seemed to be up around Buechele’s eyes,” Dodger catcher Mike Piazza said. The other mistake came in the fourth inning, when Derrick May lined a 3-and-0 pitch to center field to score Sandberg, who had doubled.

Cub starter Frank Castillo (5-6) held the Dodgers to one run and six hits through seven innings, and three relievers held the Dodgers hitless after that. The Dodgers’ run came in the fifth inning, when Jody Reed beat out a single to short and eventually scored on a line drive to right field by Offerman.

“(Castillo) was the guy we had to beat,” Eric Karros said as he iced a bruise above his left elbow, where Castillo hit him with a pitch. “We face Mike Morgan (today) and then (Jose) Guzman. So he’s the guy we have to take advantage of.”

Karros was stranded in the sixth inning after he doubled and went to third on a single by Piazza. With one out, Cory Snyder hit a line drive that Sandberg caught with a leap, then doubled up Piazza.

“I thought that he (Snyder) got all of it,” Piazza said.

It was also a self-described mediocre day for Pedro Martinez, even though he pitched a couple of hitless innings. The Dodgers were trailing, 2-1, when Martinez relieved Astacio to start the seventh inning. Martinez faced the minimum six batters and struck out three to lower his earned-run average to 2.27 with 73 strikeouts in 67 1/3 innings. He has given up only one earned run in his last 19 innings and has won his last six decisions.

But after the game, when asked if he still wants to be a starter after being so effective from the bullpen, Martinez said:

“This position as a setup man has no future. What can you get with it? You aren’t going to be an All-Star. I would take a stopper’s spot. With that spot, you can do something.”

The only way for a closer to have any future, though, is to pitch for a team that scores runs, and lately the Dodger offense has been slumping. Before the All-Star break, the Dodgers were batting .264 as a team. Since the break, they are batting .243. They have a 7-8 record since the break.

Still, the Dodgers continue to believe that they can make up the 15 games separating them and the Giants.

“I think it’s possible with the amount of time left in the season to catch them,” Orel Hershiser said. “This is the Giants’ to lose, not for us to win. We have the type of team that can do it. In baseball, you can be 14 games back, and in three days, you can be 11.

“We started out the season on a bad streak, then we had the winning streak and we have played consistently since then. If we would have played the way we are playing now at the beginning of the season, we would be OK. It’s just that the team showed up a little late. But not too late.”