Braves Let Dodgers Get Away, 2-1 : Baseball: Atlanta’s two errors in the eighth set up Samuel’s winning hit in the ninth as L.A. regains first place.

As the dazed Atlanta Braves learned Saturday night, if you give the Dodgers an inch, they will take first place.

And they won’t merely take it, they will surround it and dance upon it, as they did to home plate in the ninth inning.

Kal Daniels scored the winning run but was nearly beaten there by his teammates, who stormed out of the dugout in celebration of Juan Samuel’s triple that gave them a 2-1 victory over the Braves before 48,051 at Dodger Stadium.

Two innings after the game seemed lost, one inning after they were given a chance by two Brave errors, the Dodgers rallied to regain first place by a half a game with 12 remaining, including today’s final game of the regular season against the Braves.

“We all know it was a big victory. . . . We will find out how big the rest of the way,” Samuel said.

Starter Orel Hershiser, who gave up only one run and three hits in six innings, put it another way.

“It’s an emotional win because of the way we won and because of the situation for us,” he said. “If they would have won tonight, the race would have been in their hands, because we wouldn’t have had enough games left against them to catch up.”

In splitting the first two games of this showdown, the Dodgers took the series lead in improbability.

After all, before the bottom of the eighth, they had two hits against starter Charlie Leibrandt and one run in their last 35 innings against the Braves.

But in a 10-batter sequence in the eighth and ninth innings, they stunned the Braves while reminding them that pitching isn’t everything.

The winning run, against relief pitcher Mike Stanton, came after three pitches in the ninth.

Daniels, who had not hit a ball out of the infield this series, singled to center field. Two pitches later, Samuel, who was hitless in his previous 15 at-bats, drove a ball into the right-center field gap to score Daniels.

“I thought (David Justice) was going to catch it, but once it got behind him I looked at the coaches and saw Kal and just kept running,” Samuel said. “In the last three months, this was the biggest hit I got.”

After they scored in the fourth inning on third baseman Mike Sharperson’s mental error, the Braves self-destructed in the eighth inning to allow the Dodgers to tie the score.

There is a reason the Braves have committed more errors (126) than all but two National League teams. They showed why beginning with the leadoff ground ball in the eighth by Samuel.

Terry Pendleton, charging from third base, watched the ball bounce under his glove, allowing Samuel to reach first on the error. After a perfect bunt by Mike Scioscia moved Samuel to second, he reached third when shortstop Rafael Belliard, who had made several great plays, bounced a throw to first after catching Alfredo Griffin’s grounder.

Three batters, two errors, runners on first and third. Three pitches later, pinch-hitter Mitch Webster singled to right field to score Samuel. Darryl Strawberry ended the inning by striking out with the bases loaded, but one inning later, even that didn’t matter.

“We caught a break with those two errors by two guys who don’t usually make them,” Samuel said.

Said Webster: “It would have been a rough loss.”

The errors left the Braves looking for rationalizations.

“What happens tomorrow won’t be devasting to either team,” Leibrandt said.

Today’s game will match the staff aces, the Dodgers’ Ramon Martinez and the Braves’ Tom Glavine.

But while Glavine is on the verge of clinching the Cy Young Award with a league-leading 19 victories and a 2.52 earned-run average, Martinez has been struggling because of a bruised right biceps. In his last two starts, Martinez has given up 10 earned runs in 5 2/3 innings, including a five-run beating in two innings against the Braves last week in Atlanta.

The winning pitcher Saturday night was reliever Roger McDowell, who worked out of a self-inflicted jam in the ninth inning by retiring Ron Gant and Sid Bream on grounders with runners on second and third. Since Aug. 31, McDowell is 5-1 with two saves in 13 appearances.

The Braves scored in the fourth inning when Pendleton jogged home from third base on a grounder to Sharperson.

Pendleton began the inning with a fly ball that rattled off the center-field wall for a triple. Justice then hit a grounder to Sharperson with Pendleton running off third.

Pendleton was frozen several feet off the base, but instead of charging him, Sharperson looked at him briefly and threw the ball to first base for the out. As soon as the ball left his hand, Pendleton trotted home with the run.

Pendleton wasn’t the only one surprised with the direction of Sharperson’s throw. After the play ended, shortstop Alfredo Griffin was standing on third base, prepared to participate in a rundown of Pendleton.

When Griffin realized the throw had gone to first base, he kicked at the ground in frustration.

Lost in the final result was the outstanding effort by Hershiser, who was making his most important start since returning from shoulder surgery May 29.

BASEBALL COLUMN: The Otis Nixon incident seems to indicate that the war against drugs is not over. C10

AL EAST: The Boston Red Sox, 11 1/2 games back Aug. 7, moved to within half a game of the Toronto Blue Jays. Roundup, C11.