Dodgers Fall in Giant-Sized Rally, 8-7 : San Francisco Ready to Hoist the Flag After Five-Run Ninth

They danced from the field, through the dugout, around the clubhouse. On this most wondrous of nights for the San Francisco Giants, a seven-run deficit couldn’t stop them, Jay Howell couldn’t stop them, and now they believe nothing can stop them.

After scoring five runs with none out in the ninth inning Wednesday to beat the Dodgers, 8-7, the Giants vowed to dance all night.

“I’m sleeping here,” Will Clark shouted. “I ain’t leaving.”

In front of 21,420 stunned and screaming fans at Candlestick Park, the first-place Giants showed why if the National League West pennant race isn’t over, it will be soon. Trailing, 7-0, after three innings, they scored three runs off Dodger starter John Wetteland in the sixth and then went through Howell, losing pitcher Mike Hartley and John Tudor for five runs in the ninth.

“We’ve got to win it now,” Manager Roger Craig said. “This has to take the starch out of everybody.”

The leadoff hit in the ninth was Kevin Mitchell’s 46th homer. The turning-point hit was Chris Speier’s fly ball off Mike Marshall’s glove that turned a possible double play into a double. The winning hit was Brett Butler’s single down the right-field line off Tudor.

And the hardest hit were the San Diego Padres. Just as Wednesday’s night’s game began, the Giants’ chief pursuers were finishing a 3-1, 10-inning victory in Cincinnati. Had the Giants lost, which probably seemed a certainty to most Padres as they hit their pillows, the Giants would have led by only four games.

But these are the same Giants who came back from an 8-0 deficit against Cincinnati on Sept. 4 to win, 9-8. And what must the Padres be thinking when they awake this morning to find themselves five games behind with 10 remaining.

“They have to be wondering, ‘What does it take for us to catch them?’ ” said Earnest Riles, who hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning and singled in the ninth. “They’ve got to be saying to themselves, ‘What can you do? What can you do?’ ”

Former Padre Mitchell had a different idea concerning the Padres’ reaction.

“They’re probably just cussing us out,” he said.

If they are anything like the Dodgers, they probably were speechless, it being difficult to speak with one’s jaw dragging on the ground.

“It was something to see,” said Dodger third baseman Jeff Hamilton, who left the game in the fifth inning with a stiff shoulder that he didn’t want to aggravate in a meaningless rout.

“You’re watching it and you’re thinking, ‘Uh-oh, this is just like we did last year,’ ” Hamilton said. “As the inning goes along, you’re saying, ‘No way, this can’t keep happening.’ But it keeps happening. And then you realize we can’t stop it. Nobody can stop it.”

It started against reliever Jay Howell, who has 26 saves and had allowed only 10 earned runs in his previous 76 1/3 innings. In his previous two appearances, though, he had allowed four runs in four innings.

The inning, blow by blow:

--Mitchell hits a 420-foot homer over the center-field fence, making the score 7-4. “I just thought, still no outs, man,” Mitchell said.

--Riles singles to right.

--Matt Williams, who struck out in his three previous at-bats, doubles to right, scoring Riles to make it 7-5.

--Terry Kennedy doubles to right, making it 7-6. Pinch-runner Mike Benjamin replaces him, and Dodger rookie Hartley replaces Howell on the mound.

--Speier, pinch-hitting, lofts a ball to right field that Marshall dives for--and misses. It puts runners on second and third.

“That was the big hit,” Mitchell said. “That made us realize we couldn’t be stopped.’

--Greg Litton, another pinch-hitter, singles to left to score Benjamin with the inning’s fourth run, moving Speier to third. In comes Tudor.

--Tudor lasts about a minute, as Butler lines his single to score Speier with the game-winning run.

It was such a rush, the Giants watched the replays over and over on their training-room television sets.

“And we still haven’t made an out,” Kennedy shouted. “No outs on any of those channels.”

And for Wetteland, it had all been going so well. Looking for his first win in 47 days, he scattered three hits over 5 2/3 innings and added a three-run double to give the Dodgers their lead.

With the Giants coming out swinging after San Diego’s victory, Wetteland allowed just four baserunners in the first five innings. He struck out only two, but he remained untouched by the sort of big hit or bad pitch that sent him into an 0-5 funk in his last six starts.

When he was finally relieved by Mike Morgan in the sixth after giving up two walks and a run-scoring grounder to Mitchell and two-run homer to Riles, only one sign of the old Wetteland lingered: wild pitches. He had two such throws, giving him 16 for the season, one short of the Los Angeles team record of 17 set by Sandy Koufax in 1958.

Dodger Notes

Dodger physicians said Wednesday Mickey Hatcher was suffering from a strained right groin, not a hernia as first feared. Hatcher will rejoin the team Friday and is listed as “day to day” . . . John Tudor said Wednesday that he has canceled his retirement plans and will play next season. But he probably won’t remain with the Dodgers. Tudor admitted that last week that he asked the club for his release. The request was denied, but it showed Tudor’s frustration in having pitched only twice since being activated Sept. 2.

Orel Hershiser had a red and swollen right foot Wednesday, the result of a Candy Maldonado ground ball that bounced off his shoe in Tuesday’s game. He is still scheduled to face San Diego rookie Andy Benes Sunday in Los Angeles in the third game of this weekend’s series. If he can’t pitch, Mike Morgan is a possible replacement.