DREAD OCTOBER

General Manager Ned Colletti listened to an offer for Manny Ramirez that left him wondering aloud what the team on the other line was trying to accomplish, but the hours leading up to the 1 p.m. nonwaiver trade deadline on Saturday were otherwise productive for the Dodgers.

They found a fifth starter in Ted Lilly, a replacement for the departed Blake DeWitt in Ryan Theriot, a potential late-innings pitcher in Octavio Dotel and $3 million.

But there was a pesky thing called a game to be played, and when it ended, chatterboxes like Joe Torre and Casey Blake found themselves shaking their heads in a rare search for words.

A two-run home run with two out in the eighth inning by Pat Burrell resulted in All-Star closer Jonathan Broxton’s fourth blown save of the season and a 2-1 defeat for the Dodgers against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T; Park.

“That was a dagger,” Blake said.

The Dodgers, who dropped their fourth consecutive game, fell 5 1/2 games behind the Giants in the wild-card race.

For the 11th time in 16 games since the All-Star break, the Dodgers were held to two or fewer runs.

Torre tried his hand at humor, recalling how he recently told his pitchers, “I don’t understand why you can’t win with one run.”

“You try to lighten the mood,” Torre explained.

Or recall the past, as Blake did.

“I think you can go around this clubhouse and hear stories about how people have been on teams that were down,” Blake said.

So down are the Dodgers that the absence of the Giants’ All-Star closer Brian Wilson has made no difference.

Guillermo Mota, who was used in mop-up duty by the Dodgers last season, earned the victory by retiring all five batters he faced.

Mota leaped off the mound with both arms raised after he struck out Russell Martin to end the game.

The unfortunate starting pitcher to venture to the mound for the Dodgers on this day was Chad Billingsley, who had walked into Torre’s office last week and offered to pitch on three days’ rest to plug the gap in the rotation created by Clayton Kershaw’s suspension.

Billingsley continued to look nothing like the timid pitcher he was at the start of the season, extending his scoreless streak to 21 innings by blanking the Giants on two hits over 6 2/3 innings.

“I was kidding with him,” Torre said. “When I took him out of the game, I told him he was pitching Monday.”

Blake’s solo home run in the seventh inning accounted for the Dodgers’ only run, but Billingsley was able to hand that lead to Hong-Chih Kuo.

Kuo got out of the seventh inning and retired the first two batters he faced in the eighth. But then he hit Buster Posey, prompting an odd decision by plate umpire Rob Drake to warn both benches.

Posey was the sixth player hit in two days, and Torre said he was later told by crew chief Joe West that the umpires were instructed to be on alert because of the beanball war that erupted between the clubs during a recent series in Los Angeles.

“I thought it was silly,” Torre said, arguing there was no way Kuo would intentionally hit a batter in a one-run game.

With a man on, Torre called on Broxton, asking him to convert a four-out save.

After falling behind, 3-0, he worked the count full, but then served up a fastball over the plate that Burrell whacked into the left-field stands.

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com