SAN FRANCISCO // The Los Angeles Dodgers watched the San Francisco Giants celebrate their second final-inning comeback victory in as many days, a crowd of 41,804 fans on its feet and cheering the hometown heroes. The Dodgers lost two games in a three-game series at AT&T Park that they could have swept, the latest one a 5-4 defeat in which the Giants scored two unearned runs in the ninth for a victory that improved their record to 16 games under .500. "We're going to find out what we're made of," said the catcher Russell Martin after a loss that dropped the Dodgers one-and-a-half games behind the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West.
The manager Joe Torre said he was certain his team would recover from the setback, pointing to how the Dodgers rebounded from a 3-2, 10th-inning loss the previous night to score four runs off the Giants starter Matt Cain and take a 4-3 lead into the ninth inning. "We're just going to have to reach down and reach back, as we're playing two good teams coming in this week," said Torre. The third baseman Casey Blake had a chance to start a game-ending double play with the Dodgers still holding a one-run lead, but he fumbled a grounder by Jose Castillo and let the Giants load the bases.
The error was Blake's first in 15 games as a Dodger. "That's a routine double-play ball," said Blake. "I'm not going to make all the plays, but I have to make that play, plain and simple." * PA Sport