Dan Evans did a good job remodeling Los Angeles' aging pitching staff last winter. But for the second year in a row, the Dodgers are watching a playoff spot slip away in September for the most unlikely reason -- a lack of young, homegrown talent in their rotation.

Thanks so very little, Kevin Malone.

Consider how the Giants and Dodgers arrived at this week's four-game showdown at Chavez Ravine.

	Omar Daal, who hasn't gotten past the fifth inning in his last two starts, needs to come up big for the Dodgers.

The Giants, who have done a tremendous job of developing pitching prospects, gave 24-year-old right-hander Kurt Ainsworth a start on Sunday against San Diego in order to line up Jason Schmidt and Kirk Rueter for the first two games of series in Los Angeles. Both will have an extra day's rest.

The Dodgers meanwhile were forced to start retread Kevin Beirne, who Evans signed last winter as a minor-league free agent, on Friday night at Colorado. He was the best option to buy time for Andy Ashby, who needed a couple extra days' rest because of a blister that became infected. Kevin Brown spent the weekend in Los Angeles receiving an epidural and other treatment on his back, which is only three months removed from surgery.

Brown, who was pushed back to start Wednesday against Russ Ortiz, was forced into the rotation when Kaz Ishii had his season ended by Brian Hunter's vicious liner off his face on Sept. 8. Beirne became only the seventh starting pitcher the Dodgers have used, but the recycled Omar Daal (30 years old and with four different teams after leaving Los Angeles in a 1995 trade) is the only member of that group who was developed within the Dodgers' once-fertile farm system.

Closer Eric Gagne, a converted starter, is the asterisk to the previous sentence. But the point is this: it is almost impossible to keep a contender alive for 162 games without having talented replacements available to plug in during emergencies.

Not much figures to change in the next couple of years, either.

Evans, peddling as furiously as he can to help manager Jim Tracy protect the position built with a 50-29 start, traded the two minor leaguers who entered the season rated as the organization's best pitching prospects. Dominican right-hander Ricardo Rodriguez went to Cleveland in a deal for Paul Shuey, who has been awful (4.88 ERA with the Dodgers). Ben Diggins, a first-round pick from Arizona two years ago, went to Milwaukee for infielder Tyler Houston, who is hitting .194 with Los Angeles.

While the Dodgers' top two farm teams (Las Vegas of the Pacific Coast League and Jacksonville of the Southern League) went to the championship series of their leagues, neither had an abundance of prospects. The top starters at Vegas were journeymen Robert Ellis, Dennis Springer and Beirne (average age, 32). Nobody at Jacksonville had more than eight wins. Right-hander Joel Hanrahan, the most highly regarded prospect there, got in only three starts after arriving from Class A.

SEASON SERIES
Apr 2	San Francisco 9 at Los Angeles 2
Apr 3	San Francisco 12 at Los Angeles 0
Apr 4	San Francisco 3 at Los Angeles 0
Apr 9	Los Angeles 3 at San Francisco 0
Apr 10	at San Francisco 2, Los Angeles 1
Apr 11	Los Angeles 4 at San Francisco 3
Jul 19	San Francisco 3 at Los Angeles 2
Jul 20	at Los Angeles 4, San Francisco 2
Jul 21	San Francisco 6 at Los Angeles 4
Jul 26	Los Angeles 11 at San Francisco 6
Jul 27	Los Angeles 5 at San Francisco 1
Jul 28	at San Francisco 3, Los Angeles 1
Sep 9	at San Francisco 6, Los Angeles 5
Sep 10	at San Francisco 5, Los Angeles 2
Sep 11	Los Angeles 7 at San Francisco 3
Sep 16	San Francisco at Los Angeles, 10:10 PM
Sep 17	San Francisco at Los Angeles, 10:10 PM
Sep 18	San Francisco at Los Angeles, 10:10 PM
Sep 19	San Francisco at Los Angeles, 10:10 PM

When Malone committed $182.5 million to free-agent starters Brown, Ashby and the disabled Darren Dreifort, he hoped that the Dodgers -- who haven't won a playoff game since 1988 -- would get back to winning behind strong starting pitching. But those three have had four surgeries the last two years, winning 28 games and working only a combined 461 innings.

Los Angeles enters the four-game series trailing the Giants by only 1 game in the wild-card race. It gets to play 10 of its last 13 at home, and after San Francisco will face only the Padres (seven games) and Rockies (two games). But the Dodgers are not charting well.

After going 54-34 in the first half, they are 30-31 since the All-Star break. The trend over the last three weeks is especially alarming for Los Angeles.

On Aug. 24, the Dodgers held a lead of 4 1/2 games in the wild-card race. But as they won only nine of their next 20, the Giants went 15-6. They could have pushed their lead to two games but shut down by the Padres' Jake Peavy and Trevor Hoffman on Sunday.

A weekend trip to Denver didn't exactly breed confidence in the Dodgers. They had won 10 of 13 against Colorado but dropped three of four, including a pair of one-run losses.

While Shawn Green has become the first Dodger since Duke Snider to put together back-to-back 40-homer seasons, the hitters around him and Brian Jordan aren't exactly striking fear in anyone. Los Angeles ranks 11th in the National League with an average of 4.4 runs per game.

Tracy's team hasn't won a game in which his pitchers allowed more than three runs since Aug. 17. The Giants, who are second in the NL to Arizona with 4.8 runs per game, have won six such games over the same span.

When the Dodgers' lineup was at its best, producing almost five runs a game in May, Green not only was on a tear but guys were getting on base in front of him. Leadoff man Dave Roberts is hitting only .214 in September. Adrian Beltre and Marquis Grissom are also finishing with a thud.

Tracy has Nomo, Daal, Brown and Odalis Perez lined up for the showdown against San Francisco. Those guys will need to be at their best against Schmidt, Rueter, Russ Ortiz and Livan Hernandez, who have gone 13-5 with a 3.14 ERA the last five trips through the rotation.

"They're playing pretty good right now and we're not," Beltre said. "But that doesn't mean they're going to stay hot the rest of the season and we're not." San Francisco leads the season series 9-6, including a 5-1 mark this season at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers must be fighting a feeling of 'here we go again.' They led the wild-card race as late as Sept. 7 in 2001 but went 8-14 down the stretch, finishing eight games behind St. Louis.

Beltre's right, however. These trends don't prove a thing. But they're more suggestive than a Calvin Klein ad.

	Jose Hernandez Shortstop Milwaukee Brewers Profile
	2002 SEASON STATISTICS AB HR RBI BB K AVG 508 24 69 49 186 .285

Spotlight: Brewers SS Jose Hernandez
While Alex Rodriguez has given himself a legitimate shot at the American League homer record -- he needs six in the Rangers' remaining 13 games to catch Roger Maris -- there's almost no doubt that Hernandez is going to make history. He has 186 strikeouts in 508 at-bats, which leaves him only three short of the Bobby Bonds record that has stood since 1970.

Hernandez probably would have broken Bonds' mark last season if not for the mercy shown by manager Davey Lopes, who gave him only two at-bats in the last four games (and 22 in the last 11 games) after he had reached 183. Hernandez finished with 185, one short of Rob Deer's AL record.

But interim manager Jerry Royster has different priorities. Royster has been focused on trying to avoid the first 100-loss season in Brewers' history, which seems impossible after a stretch in which Milwaukee has lost 10 of its last 12, pushing its record to 52-97.

"He's been striking out since the day I said hello to him several years ago," Royster told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "I can tell you that if we're in that last series and it comes down to his getting the record or our losing 100 games, he'll probably get the record because he'll be playing."

Hernandez, whose presence on the All-Star team illustrates the absence of shortstop stars in the NL, is hitting .285 with 24 homers and playing decently in the field. "Jose is having a great year," Royster said.

New face: Blue Jays LHP Mark Hendrickson
How many talented prospects does this organization have? The team that had already gotten major contributions out of third baseman Eric Hinske, center fielder Vernon Wells, DH Josh Phelps, second baseman Orlando Hudson and shortstop Chris Woodward came up with another find in the 6-9 Hendrickson, a former NBA forward.

After getting his feet wet in relief, Hendrickson has moved into Toronto's rotation. He picked up his first victory on Saturday, holding Tampa Bay to one run over six innings. He had worked five scoreless innings against Boston in his previous start.

Manager Carlos Tosca expects Hendrickson to compete for a job in the 2003 rotation. "He's right on pace to be a candidate for a spot," Tosca said.

Phil Rogers is the national baseball writer for the Chicago Tribune, which has a web site at www.chicagosports.com.