NEW YORK — The Los Angeles Dodgers claim they're not falling into another disastrous stretch, similar to the one that saw them lose 15 of 19 games in late July and early August.

Their last two games would seem to indicate otherwise.

The Dodgers didn't struggle with runners in scoring position in Saturday afternoon's game against the New York Mets, but that's because they weren't presented with many of those opportunities.

Their too-little, too-late offense made little noise, created just enough runs to come out on the short end of a 4-3 loss at Shea Stadium.

The Dodgers entered Saturday's action trailing the San Diego Padres by 3 games in the wild-card race. They exited Saturday with 33 games left to play.

"What I see is a ballclub that gets a few key situations in the ballgame and the positive thing is not happening," Manager Grady Little said. "We've gone through really bad spells with runners in scoring position where we didn't have success. Our approach in those situations is not as good as we see across the way."

The Mets had a little bit of trouble in that area as well, leaving the bases loaded without scoring in the first inning. Carlos Delgado made the final out with a grounder to third.

The Mets took a 1-0 lead in the third when Jose Reyes scored on a single by David Wright, but again they faltered when they could have scored more. Delgado was the out-man again, popping out with runners at first and second to extended his slump to 0 for 19. That's why the Dodgers chose to pitch to him with the bases loaded in the fifth.

Wright walked and took third on a single to right-center by Carlos Beltran. Beltran stole second, so the Dodgers decided to walk Jeff Conine and pitch to Delgado.

The overdue Delgado lined Eric Stults' first pitch into center field, giving the Mets a 3-0 lead.

"I think I was running on empty, but I was giving it all I had to try to get out of that fifth inning," Stults said. "I was trying to throw a first-pitch strike (to Delgado). I got a little too much of the plate."

Stults (1-2) said he was having trouble with his command and was forced to battle through it. He was charged with three runs in 423 innings.

Mets starting pitcher Orlando Hernandez gave up two hits through the first six innings, but his dominance against the Dodgers ended when Luis Gonzalez and Russell Martin hit back-to-back home runs in the seventh.

"El Duque (Hernandez) pitched a good game, Gonzalez said. "He had all of his pitches going. He changed speeds and he was effective. That's his game. When he's doing that and throwing strikes, that's the name of his game. That's how he's effective." The Mets added a run in the seventh to increase their lead to 4-2.

But all the Dodgers could answer with were a triple by Shea Hillenbrand and RBI-grounder by Mark Sweeney.