Rams Are Battered, Bruised and Beaten : Pro football: Rice turns a short route into a 62-yard touchdown pass play to lead the 49ers, 27-10.

Jerry Rice broke their backs and Flipper Anderson’s was seriously injured as the Rams’ latest trip down desperation row Sunday led to another defeat.

And each week they go on, the injury list grows longer, and the season more and more resembles a repeat of last season’s free-fall.

Sunday, the Rams struggled to stay within reach of the San Francisco 49ers for three quarters, again unable to score but with an under-manned, over-achieving defense barely denying the 49ers the same.

But, as was probably inevitable, the more talented, more experienced 49ers in the final period got a Hall of Fame play by Rice, a 62-yard touchdown reception conjured out of a five-yard pattern, to break the game open and enable them to cruise to a 27-10 victory before 63,871 at Candlestick Park.

“Damn, what a freak play,” said defensive end Kevin Greene, slumping against his locker and asked to comment on Rice’s touchdown, which kicked open what was a 13-10 game and sapped the Rams’ defensive spirit.

The Rams (1-3), whose lineup already was so overloaded with banged-up players from the past two weeks that they dressed only 43 Sunday, got the bitterest news last:

Anderson, the team’s best deep threat, will sit out at least a month because of an injury to the lower part of his back that left him unable to walk without assistance an hour after the game. Starting left guard Bern Brostek left the game after the Rams’ third play and will sit out for three weeks because of a badly bruised shin.

Anderson, injured in the fourth quarter when a 49er defender fell on him while making a tackle, had to be wheeled out of the locker room to the team plane on a gurney, apparently not in severe pain but face down to avoid putting weight on his back.

The precise nature of the injury was unclear, but Anderson apparently suffered cracked edges of some vertebrae, and although he probably will return this season, there is uncertainty about when.

Anderson and Brostek join five Rams on the injured-reserve list and the four other players--all starters--who were unable to play Sunday.

Quarterback Jim Everett also had to leave the game for one series in the second half after his left shoulder popped out of its socket, but he returned to the game after it was popped back in.

So the Rams go into this week’s game against Green Bay--a game Coach John Robinson does not deny must be won for them to maintain distant playoff hopes--scrambling for healthy bodies at a time when even the healthiest are frustrated and pained by the slow start.

“We have a hellacious number of injuries,” Robinson said after the game and before he knew the full extent of Anderson’s and Brostek’s problems. “This is the most injured of any team I’ve ever had.”

For the Ram defensive players, who have held reasonably steady through this rash of injury, and who held steady Sunday until the Rice play, the result of the game was fairly serious stuff to digest.

“You’ve got to be frustrated. You’ve got to feel some pain,” said cornerback Sammy Lilly, who readily acknowledged that his missed tackle on Rice in the left flat set Rice loose. “We played well enough to win today, but, man, third down, 13-10, I thought I had him tackled, but I didn’t wrap up hard enough.

“He’s done it to other people, but I never thought it would happen to me. If I stop him short of the first down, they punt, we get the ball back, I’m a hero. I miss it, and now everybody looks at it. . . .”

Said Robinson: “The turning point of the game was Jerry Rice’s play.”

The Rams had a similar, if less game-turning, episode at the end of the uneven first half, which closed with a 10-10 score.

The Ram offense, leading, 7-3, but still struggling and still without a touchdown pass from Everett (17 for 35 on the day for 219 yards), had a first-and-goal opportunity in the half’s final minutes but had to settle for a short Tony Zendejas field goal.

Zendejas put the ensuing kick-off out of bounds, giving the 49er offense, to that point looking haphazard under the control of Steve Young, the ball at its 35-yard line with 41 seconds left in the half.

“You kick it to them and you know they’re capable of bringing it down field and scoring,” Robinson said.

He was right. Evoking memories of the injured Joe Montana in quick-strike fashion, Young completed consecutive passes of nine, 15 and 27 yards, got a face-mask penalty for five more, then proceeded to fire one over the middle to John Taylor for a 12-yard touchdown and the score was tied as the half closed.

“That hurt us,” Greene said. “That hurt us.”

San Francisco got a field goal in the third quarter as it began to wear down the thinned, black-and-blue Ram line. That set up the Rice touchdown early in the fourth that sent the 49ers back to .500.

On the third-and-three play, Young took three steps back, threw straight to Rice two yards down the field and out wide, then watched Rice break Lilly’s and defensive tackle Robert Young’s tackles to score.

The Ram offense had its moments, but, in what has become this year’s tradition, could not put the ball in the end zone with regularity.

Robinson noted some slight improvements in the team’s offensive performance in contrast with last week’s horror in New Orleans--a more confident Everett, better pass blocking, a couple of sustained drives--but Everett threw an interception in the end zone on a miscommunication with Aaron Cox, and the Rams gained only 64 yards on 21 carries.

Now, after a weird home loss to Phoenix, a soaring road victory over the New York Giants, a disaster in the Superdome and this to wrap up the three-game trip, the Rams are delivered into must-win territory.

“I think the next two are (necessary),” Robinson said. “I think we have to get back to 3-3. That’s important for us. The wild card in the NFC’s going to be 9-7--3-3 gives you a shot at 9-7 or 10-6 if you get hot.”

Ram Notes

With left guard Bern Brostek out of the game because of a bruised right shin, center Tom Newberry moved into Brostek’s place, and last year’s starting center, Doug Smith, stepped into his old position. . . . Cornerback Rodney Thomas and linebacker Fred Strickland were deactivated because of injuries.

Backup Mike Pagel took over at quarterback after Jim Everett’s shoulder injury, but Everett was back behind center the next time the Rams got the ball after that. “You guys can decide what I proved,” Everett told reporters after the game. “I was out there because you never know what’s going to happen in this league. We’ve pulled out miracles before. It’s just my belief in this team.”