Green, Dodgers Are Singularly Sensational

Shawn Green could go the rest of the season without hitting another home run and not be disappointed, as long as he hits the ball as hard as he did Saturday, when he had three singles, scored twice and knocked in two runs in the Dodgers’ 10-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs before 40,032 in Wrigley Field.

In a rare outburst against a usually dominant pitcher -- right-hander Kerry Wood -- hampered by a lower-back injury, the often anemic Dodgers reached double figures in runs for only the second time this season and amassed 16 hits on a sweltering, 90-degree afternoon, equaling the number of runs the pitching-rich Cubs had allowed in their previous six games.

Leadoff batter Dave Roberts was a spark plug, with three singles, a walk, three runs and a stolen base; third baseman Adrian Beltre continued his hot streak with a home run, a double and four RBIs, raising his National League-leading RBI total for August to 18; and Jeromy Burnitz capped the day with an eighth-inning home run.

Green, who hit a franchise-record 49 home runs in 2001 and 42 homers in 2002, did not hit a home run Saturday -- he has not homered since hitting his 11th of the season on July 21, a span of 23 games -- but that’s all right with him.

“I lost my focus trying to hit home runs, so I just want to hit the ball hard,” Green said. “Every time I looked up at the scoreboard I’d see 11 home runs, and this time of year, that’s obviously not where you want to be. But now, I’m kind of over that.

“I’m just trying to hit the ball hard, and if the home runs come, they come; if they don’t, they don’t. I don’t want to get in the mind-set that now that I’m hitting the ball hard, I’ve got to hit home runs.”

Green said he came to this realization a few weeks ago after lengthy discussions with teammates such as Burnitz and former batting instructor Jack Clark. It’s no coincidence that Green has hit .358 (44 for 123) in the last 32 games, raising his average from .248 on July 9 to .278.

“I stopped thinking that if I have a big week or a big month I can get back on track -- that’s the wrong way to think,” Green said. “It’s just a matter of changing my expectations instead of thinking about numbers, trying to think about the process.”

Manager Jim Tracy doesn’t seem to mind Green’s approach.

“When you get runners on base, singles are a beautiful thing,” Tracy said. “Driving the ball is the objective. To ask a guy to hit home run after home run is no good. Just make solid contact. Put good at-bats together.”

The Dodgers did that from the outset Saturday when Roberts battled back from an 0-and-2 count to draw a leadoff walk in the first and later scored on Beltre’s two-out double. Wood struggled with his control and needed 28 pitches to finish the first inning.

The Dodgers scored in the second on Cesar Izturis’ double before a three-run rally, highlighted by Aramis Ramirez’s two-run homer off Dodger starter Odalis Perez, put the Cubs ahead in the bottom of the second.

Beltre’s 14th homer and sixth in the last 15 games -- a two-run laser over the wall in left -- and Izturis’ sacrifice fly gave the Dodgers a 5-3 lead in the third, but another two-run homer by Ramirez in the bottom of the third made it 5-5.

The Dodgers took command in the fourth, with consecutive RBI singles off reliever Mike Remlinger by Paul Lo Duca, Green and Burnitz, all of which advanced runners from first to third. They added another run in the fifth on Green’s RBI single, which made the score 9-5 and marked the first time this season the Dodgers have scored in five consecutive innings.

The first five batters in the Dodger order -- Roberts, Lo Duca, Green, Burnitz and Beltre -- combined for 12 hits in 26 at-bats, eight runs and eight RBIs. Beltre, a career .302 batter in August, raised his average to .377 (20 for 53) this month.

“Today, we did something we don’t do a lot, but when we do, we’re a pretty good team,” Tracy said. “Odalis gave up a few home runs, but we kept answering them.... If we hit like that, we’re going to win a lot of games.”

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A Score Subject

A look at Dodger per-game run production and their corresponding record:

*--* 0 runs 0-9 6 runs 10-1 1 run 2-20 7 runs 0-1 2 runs 7-7 8 runs 4-0 3 runs 9-11 9 runs 4-0 4 runs 14-7 10 runs 1-0 5 runs 11-3 16 runs 1-0

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Record: 63-59 and trailing Philadelphia by five games in the NL wild-card race.

Notable: The Dodgers are 45-12 when they score at least four runs and 31-5 when they score at least five runs.