L.A. Moving Away From Cellar

The dog days of September can force a non-contending team--such as the Dodgers--to find all sorts of ways to stay motivated.

And if that means playing to keep from being the worst team in the NL West, so be it.

The Dodgers, who went into Monday night’s game against Montreal 1 1/2 games ahead of last-place Colorado, began their “stay out of the cellar” drive with a 12-4 victory over the Expos before 29,475 at Dodger Stadium.

Chan Ho Park (10-10) won his fourth consecutive decision, Gary Sheffield and Devon White each hit two-run homers, and Raul Mondesi had four hits, knocked in a run, scored a run and stole two bases for the Dodgers, who ended a two-game losing streak.

Park, who won for only the second time this year at Dodger Stadium, gave up eight hits in six innings. Montreal’s Dan Smith (4-9) gave up seven hits and five runs and suffered the loss.

Montreal took an early lead in the third when Geoff Blum hit a solo home run, but the Dodgers bounced back behind Sheffield in their half of the inning.

With Mark Grudzielanek, who walked three times and scored twice, on second base, Sheffield hit his 25th homer of the season, giving him 85 runs batted in for the season and 26 RBIs in the Dodgers’ last 23 games.

The Dodgers (67-77) added another run in the inning when Mondesi doubled and scored on White’s single to make the score 3-1.

The Dodgers’ lead lasted until the fifth when the Expos (60-84) scored three runs, highlighted by a two-run homer from Vladimir Guerrero, his 36th.

Mondesi led a Dodger rally in the bottom half of the inning with a single to score Sheffield. Mondesi then stole his 29th base, paving the way for Todd Hollandsworth to score from third in a double-steal that put the Dodgers ahead, 5-4.

L.A. then extended its lead in the sixth when Todd Hundley hit his 23rd home run and rookie Alex Cora knocked in two runs with a double to make it 8-4.

In the seventh, the Dodgers added another run when Adrian Beltre’s triple scored White. In the eighth, White hit his 11th homer, scoring Mondesi, who had doubled, and Hundley scored on Craig Counsell’s sacrifice fly.

The Dodgers, who had lost six of their last seven games going into Monday, started their regular lineup against Montreal with only second baseman Eric Young being replaced by Cora, who played in his third game since being called up from triple-A Albuquerque.

Dodger Manager Davey Johnson said he wanted to give Cora, who played two games at shortstop, a look at second because he felt the young infielder would get more action. He was right.

After not getting any ground balls hit to him at shortstop, Cora made errors on his first two chances at second against the Expos. But he was solid after that.

*

Reliever Antonio Osuna, who pitched 1 1/3 innings on a rehabilitation assignment at Class-A San Bernardino Sunday, will have season-ending elbow surgery Thursday.

Osuna, who will probably miss most of next season because of the operation, had hoped to avoid surgery, but he continued to experience swelling throughout his rehab, which began in early August. Johnson said Osuna’s fastball peaked at 87 mph, and he wasn’t able to get any more velocity in his pitches.

Dr. Frank Jobe, who will perform the operation, said the pitcher finally came to him Monday to request the “Tommy John operation,” a procedure that will take a ligament from his left wrist and insert it into his right elbow.

“The recovery for an operation like this is about a year,” said Jobe, who added that Osuna’s rehab was going well until the elbow began to hurt again.

This will be the third surgery on Osuna’s elbow in almost a year. Osuna, who pitched in only five games for the Dodgers this year and had a 7.71 earned-run average, missed the last month of last season because of bone spurs removed from the elbow on Sept. 8, 1998, and then had another spur removed arthroscopically at the start of this season.

TONIGHT

DODGERS’

KEVIN BROWN

(16-7, 3.03 ERA)

vs.

EXPOS’

JAVIER VAZQUEZ

(7-7, 5.41 ERA)

Dodger Stadium, 7

TV--Fox Sports West 2. Radio--KXTA (1150), KWKW (1330).

* Update--Brown is 6-1 with a 1.62 ERA in his last 10 starts and has won seven of eight decisions, but he lost to the New York Mets in his last appearance. Brown needs four more victories to reach 20 in a season for the second time in his career, having won 21 with Texas in 1992. Vazquez is 0-1 against the Dodgers this season, losing 8-7 at Montreal on May 5.