Rotation, Rotation, Rotation

Right fielder Shawn Green has provided much of the lumber, and closer Eric Gagne has provided the ninth-inning hammer, but the National League West-leading Dodgers are built on a foundation of starting pitching.

A rotation that has lacked injured ace Kevin Brown has been anything but lacking, leading the major leagues with 44 wins, ranking second with a 3.53 earned-run average and averaging 6 1/3 innings per start.

Right-hander Hideo Nomo (9-5) hasn’t lost since May 12, left-hander Odalis Perez (10-4) has pitched with the poise of a veteran, left-hander Kazuhisa Ishii (11-5) has been dominant, though perplexing at times, right-hander Andy Ashby (7-6) has rebounded strongly from elbow surgery, and left-hander Omar Daal (7-4) has been a capable, if not consistent, No. 5 starter.

The Dodgers are depending on their rotation to fend off Arizona, which opens the second half with a crucial four-game series in Dodger Stadium beginning tonight, and San Francisco to win the division or claim a wild-card berth that’s likely to come out of the West.

And this is where things could get dicey.

Ashby has a career 58-50 record and 3.84 ERA in April, May, June and July but is 28-37 with a 4.68 ERA in August and September. Nomo was Boston’s top pitcher for the first four months of 2001, going 11-4 with a 3.86 ERA, before fading down the stretch, going 2-6 with a 5.68 ERA in August and September.

Perez, a 23-year-old All-Star, has thrown 128 innings, 32 more than he has thrown in any major league season, and has admitted being fatigued in his last two starts, when he gave up 10 earned runs in 12 innings.

Ishii exceeded 183 innings only once in 10 years in Japan, and Daal has been unpredictable, going 0-3 with an 11.57 ERA in three starts after replacing Brown, 3-0 with a 1.59 ERA in his next three, and getting shellacked for eight runs in 3 2/3 innings Sunday in St. Louis.

Playoff berths are won in August and September, but this is unchartered territory for some Dodger pitchers, and unforgiving grounds for others.

“Maybe it’s an inability to focus or a lack of intensity, but it’s mostly mental,” Dodger pitching coach Jim Colborn said, when asked why some pitchers fade in the final two months. “If they start thinking about the past, what they’ve done, then it might affect them. It’s part of our job to keep them in the present.”

Colborn does not anticipate any kind of drop-off this summer.

“They’re all strong competitors in their own style,” Colborn said. “When it gets down to crunch time, they buckle down and go after hitters. We had guys in the past who tended to panic a bit, but I see these guys getting meaner when challenged. That, to me, is the unique thing about our rotation and pitching staff.”

There will be challenges aplenty in the coming months as the Dodgers seek to reach the playoffs for the first time since 1996. Two formidable ones come right out of the second-half chute, when Nomo opposes Randy Johnson tonight and Perez faces Curt Schilling on Friday night.

BIGGEST FIRST-HALF SURPRISE: Gagne, with honorable mention to first baseman Eric Karros. Gagne showed this spring he had the stuff of a closer, and he seemed to have the mental makeup, but who could have predicted he’d be baseball’s most dominant reliever, a pitcher with almost as many saves (32) as base-runners allowed (33)?

The former hockey player has converted all but two save opportunities, with a 1.39 ERA, 62 strikeouts and six walks (two intentional), in 45 1/3 innings.

Mixing his 98-mph fastball with a superb change-up and an occasional curve, Gagne has limited opponents to a .167 average and is the main reason the Dodgers are 49-0 when leading after eight innings. One key for Manager Jim Tracy in the second half will be pacing Gagne, so he doesn’t burn out.

Karros looked so bad in spring training, hitting .190 with no homers, many scouts thought he was done. Two and a half months later, Karros was batting cleanup. With his lower back sound after his injury-plagued 2001 (.235, 15 homers, 63 RBIs), Karros is batting .292 with nine homers and 42 RBIs, sacrificing a little power for more consistent contact. Karros is hitting .308 with runners in scoring position.

BIGGEST FIRST-HALF DISAPPOINTMENT: Third baseman Adrian Beltre, with dishonorable mention to second baseman Mark Grudzielanek. Beltre has been an enigma, showing brief flashes of the star the Dodgers think he can be and long stretches when he doesn’t have a clue at the plate and seems lackadaisical in the field.

Beltre is hitting .238 with seven homers and 29 RBIs, providing less offense than he did in 2001, when he hit .265 with 13 homers and 60 RBIs while recovering from a botched appendectomy. He also leads the Dodgers with 15 errors.

Grudzielanek, battling an array of minor injuries, is hitting .245 with four homers and 28 RBIs and will likely lose playing time to Alex Cora in the second half. With shortstop Cesar Izturis at .230, the bottom third of the lineup has been punchless.

DEFINING MOMENT: April 11, Pacific Bell Park, San Francisco, bottom of the ninth, runners on first and third, one out. Gagne strikes out cleanup batter Jeff Kent and gets Reggie Sanders to fly to right, saving a 4-3 victory. Not that there was any doubt, but Tracy adjourns closer-by-committee and names Gagne closer the next day.

“He’s changed the whole dynamic of our team,” Green said. “He’s shortened the game. In the sixth, seventh and eighth innings of close games, the other teams feel him out there, just like [Yankee opponents] do with Mariano Rivera. They know they have to score in the innings leading up to the ninth, or it’s going to be lights out.”

AT THIS PACE: Gagne would finish with 59 saves, breaking Bobby Thigpen’s major league record of 57, set for the White Sox in 1990. Green would finish with 48 homers and 125 RBIs, remarkable considering he was on pace for 11 homers and 79 RBIs on May 18. Green was batting .230 with three homers and 21 RBIs in 43 games that day. He has 23 homers and 47 RBIs in 45 games since, raising his average to .280.

REASONS TO BE EXCITED: Leadoff batter Dave Roberts continues to spark the offense, hitting .302 with 20 stolen bases, catcher Paul Lo Duca, who is hitting .326 with 23 doubles and 38 RBIs, is producing in the No. 2 spot, right-hander Darren Dreifort, out since June of 2001 because of elbow surgery, could return in August, and Brown could bolster the rotation if he returns from back surgery.

REASONS TO BE CONCERNED: Left-handed batters are hitting .294 with two homers in 34 at-bats against left-handed relief specialist Jesse Orosco, right-hander Giovanni Carrara, one of the Dodgers’ primary setup men, has been extremely inconsistent, going 5-2 with a 3.78 ERA and allowing 10 of 20 inherited runners to score, and Brown could be out the rest of the season.

MOVES TO PONDER: Though the Dodgers inquired about Met second baseman Roberto Alomar, they are more focused on improving their bench and bullpen. They’ve expressed interest in Texas’ Frank Catalanotto, Milwaukee’s Tyler Houston and Bill Mueller of the Cubs.

The Dodgers are also believed to be pursuing a left-handed reliever, with Baltimore’s Buddy Groom, the Mets’ Mark Guthrie, Pittsburgh’s Scott Sauerbeck and Cleveland’s Ricardo Rincon among the candidates.

SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER: The Dodgers have not lost three in a row since a season-opening sweep at the hands of the Giants, and though their rotation lacks a Randy Johnson-type force, it is so deep the Dodgers seem resistant to the lengthy losing streaks that can devastate and demoralize teams in September. Though the rotation doesn’t have much of a late-season track record, it should overcome that reputation and push the Dodgers into the postseason for the first time in six years.

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NEXT UP

The first-place Dodgers open the second half of the season with a four-game series at Dodger Stadium against second-place Arizona:

TONIGHT

7, FSN2

Hideo Nomo

vs.

Randy Johnson

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FRIDAY

7, Channel 13

Odalis Perez

vs.

Curt Schilling

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SATURDAY

1, Channel 11

Andy Ashby

vs.

Rick Helling

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SUNDAY

5, ESPN

Kazuhisa Ishii

vs.

Brian Anderson