LOS ANGELES - They leave behind the smog, Robert Blake's jail cell, round-the-clock traffic, tattooed grandmothers, fish tacos, beach volleyball players, Vin Scully, Rodeo Drive, valet parking at the post office, Viagra-to-go, and a whole lot of people who can pronounce ''Garciaparra'' the way it was intended.

The cost of the trip? Besides the chunks of Brian Daubach's self-esteem scattered along the coast from Coronado to Malibu, and bats inadvertently flung like driftwood into the stands by the giant Cuban rookie, Juan Diaz, the cost was bragging rights.

After being swept this weekend by the Dodgers, yesterday's 9-6 loss either a Mel Brooks farce or a David Lynch head-scratcher, the Red Sox forfeited not only their claim on the best record in baseball, but their lead in the American League East to the New York Yankees, who slipped a half-game ahead for the first time since April 15.

The Mariners (46-28) are mere percentage points behind the Sox (45-27). The A's, 14-1 in interleague play while the Sox have been nickel-and-dimed by the National League (5-10), are just three games back.

But before you even begin to allow the words ''June swoon'' to form on your lips as you contemplate the Sox' 9-12 record for the month, take a deep breath, and consider what the Sox have awaiting them when they return home, opening a three-game set against the Indians tomorrow night.

In order of importance:

1. Manny;

2. A new power lefthanded setup man, Alan Embree, who could be the second coming of Arthur Rhodes;

3. The return of the designated hitter;

4. El Guapo, presumably on two good legs;

5. A schedule almost as favorable as the University of Nebraska football team's annual lineup of nonconference cream puffs.

Ramirez didn't have a hit again in three at-bats yesterday in Pawtucket, while serving as DH. He's hitless in his last 18 at-bats for the PawSox, with plans to play left field tonight. He's batting .103 (3 for 29) in nine games while on rehab assignment.

But to invoke Manny's favorite response to questions ranging from the cost of his missing diamond earring to whether he favors nuclear nonproliferation: It doesn't matter.

After an absence that has now reached 39 games, 18 of them losses, the Sox need Ramirez back. While he has been out, his mates have gone 2-7 in one-run games, after being 6-1 in such contests while he was here.

Fifteen times the Sox held opponents to three runs or fewer with Ramirez out. Those are games American League teams usually win, given the league ERA of 4.43. The Sox are 3-12 in those games, 0 for 4 on this trip.

Grady Little has run out four cleanup hitters on the trip - Daubach, Shea Hillenbrand, Nomar Garciaparra, and yesterday's appointee, Carlos Baerga, who actually gave a good account of himself with a double and home run, his second of the season.

But while Papi is a rolling stone, he's not the same as Goldfinger.

Rico Petrocelli, the former Sox shortstop who does TV commentary on PawSox games, watched yesterday as Ramirez hit a ball to the warning track in right-center as part of his latest oh-fer.

''I did the first game of his rehab, too,'' Petrocelli said by phone yesterday. ''It wasn't very good. His swings were very tentative, and it looked like he was favoring the finger.

''Today, even his best swings still weren't great. I'd say two of them were decent swings, but not that Manny-like, good quick stuff.''

But ask Petrocelli, and you get the same answer a baseball executive here gave when asked if he'd hesitate to bring Ramirez back because he's not hitting in Triple A.

''He's certainly not Manny Ramirez yet, but he's ready to go back to the big leagues,'' Petrocelli said. ''Who knows? He may be holding back until he gets to the big leagues. He may be cautious; he doesn't want to take a chance of spraining it.

''But either way, he needs to get back to the team. It'll be good for the ball club that he's back in there. Even if he has some problems swinging, he still should be with the ball club. They need him. They need to have his presence.

''Even if he isn't 100 percent, his presence will help everybody in that lineup.''

What Ramirez will do for the lineup, general manager Mike Port and assistant Theo Epstein did on a lesser scale for the bullpen, outbidding four other teams to obtain lefthanded reliever Alan Embree from the Padres. A guy who for years held onto a job only because he was lefthanded and breathing - he's on his seventh team and signed with the Padres last winter for the thrift-shop price of $500,000 - Embree has suddenly morphed into a guy who whiffed six Yankees in three innings in his last relief outing Saturday and had an 0.94 ERA in 36 relief appearances.

''Make no mistake,'' one baseball executive said, ''the Red Sox got the best lefty reliever on the market. Comparing him to Rhodes might be a stretch, but I've seen him the last couple of weeks, and he's throwing 94 to 96, and just dominating lefthanded hitters.''

Embree has always had great stuff, especially the hard fastball. But he's always had command problems, which is why the Sox think this could be Rhodes redux. Like Embree, Rhodes is a power lefty who went to the Mariners two seasons ago at age 30 and figured it out. Embree, 32, looks like he may be doing the same.

Pair Embree in the pen with a healthy Rich Garces, whose hamstring held up last week on two rehab outings in Florida, and the Sox may have answered a need that both Port and Epstein recognized had reached the acute stage last month when the Yankees banged the Sox around on two successive weekends. It remains to be seen, of course, how Embree fares in unforgiving Boston as compared with anything-goes San Diego. But clearly the Sox were not alone in believing he can make a difference.

The cost? Pitcher Brad Baker, a local boy (Leyden, Mass.) who joins Rick Asadoorian as native-son first-round draft picks traded away in the span of seven months (Asadoorian went to St. Louis in the Dustin Hermanson deal). Baker was putting up good numbers in Sarasota - 7-1 in 12 starts - but you can be certain he wasn't the first player the Padres asked for, or even the fourth. Padres GM Kevin Towers has a track record in spotting young pitching (can you say Dennis Tankersley?), so this is one of those deals that could come back to bite the Sox, but when you're trying to win now, you take those chances. And the Sox like their side of the risk-profit ratio.

Ramirez, Garces, and Embree should make for a homecoming. So should having the DH for a team that needed every hitter at its disposal with Ramirez gone.

Best of all, except for a final fling this weekend against the Braves, the Sox are done with the National League. They have 14 games in 13 days before the All-Star break, including a makeup date July 2, and 11 of those games come against the Blue Jays, Indians, and Tigers, all of whom have losing records.

Take it past the break, and 29 of Boston's next 38 games are against losers. They won't have it that easy again until the final month of the season, when their last 24 games are against teams below .500.

So, to borrow one of John Kiley's favorite tunes, it's time for a few stout-hearted men and women who can look through the LA haze and see better times ahead.

By Gordon Edes, Globe Staff, 6/24/2002

This story ran on page D1 of the Boston Globe on 6/24/2002.

Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.