This One Shakes the Dodgers : Baseball: L.A. falls one game behind Braves with two games to play after 4-1 loss to Giants. Clark, Williams and Bass hit home runs.

The team that could not be intimidated seemed intimidated. The team that could not be outplayed in a big game was outplayed in a very big game.

The team that could not scare is suddenly scared.

A Dodger season that seemed destined to extend to the playoffs was put on the verge of collapse Friday night by the strutting San Francisco Giants, who would be only too happy to administer the final blow this afternoon.

With home runs by Will Clark, Matt Williams and Kevin Bass, and good pitching against impatient hitters, the Giants defeated the Dodgers, 4-1, before 32,362 at Candlestick Park.

With the Atlanta Braves’ 5-2 victory over the Houston Astros, the Dodgers fell one game out of first place in the National League West with two games remaining.

An Atlanta victory and Dodger defeat today would clinch the division championship for the Braves and mark one of the worst Dodger collapses in Los Angeles baseball history.

On July 28, the Dodgers led the West by 6 1/2 games. Never before have they led by so many games so late in the season and not won the division title.

“We have played so well, you would never think it would come to this point,” Darryl Strawberry said quietly.

Said Brett Butler: “When we were 9 1/2 games up (on the Braves), I thought we might stumble, but I did not think we would lose . . . and I still don’t.”

The odds aren’t with him anymore. The Braves must lose one of their two remaining games against Houston while Dodgers win both of their two remaining games here for the Dodgers to force a tie and a one-game playoff Monday in Los Angeles.

“The way the Braves are playing, it would be incredible if they lost,” Lenny Harris said.

The Dodgers are perhaps too aware of how the Braves are playing. Their attention in a subdued clubhouse Friday afternoon was riveted to the Braves’ game, and as the Braves took the lead, the place didn’t get any louder.

Then the Dodgers took the field, and Giant fans were moving their arms in a

tomahawk chop.

“Right now, everywhere we go, we see Braves, and that’s tough,” Harris said. “There is always somebody talking about the Braves, or tomahawking us.

“I think seeing them winning makes us really try hard. Maybe too hard.”

It seemed that way Friday night in a game that had little resemblance to their 23 recent victories in 32 games.

Ramon Martinez, who is throwing tired pitches with what could be a tired arm, allowed three runs in the first inning on homers by Clark (29) and Williams (34).

He finished by giving up eight hits in 5 1/3 innings. In his last five starts, he is 1-5 with a 5.88 earned-run average.

And now Strawberry is wondering aloud about his pitch selection.

“That home run came on a fastball away, and you can never throw Clark a fastball away, he showed that to us in Los Angeles,” Strawberry said.

Clark is batting .400 against Martinez this year and .393 against the Dodgers with five home runs.

Of Friday’s homer, he admitted: “You don’t hit a ball like that unless you’re looking for it.”

The Dodgers offense, which had pounded left-hander Bud Black for 14 runs in his previous 27 innings against them, managed seven hits and one run in six innings against him. Then against reliever Jeff Brantley, they struck out six times in three innings, a career high for Brantley.

In all, they left nine runners on base, stranding at least one runner in seven of nine innings.

Strawberry foiled the Dodgers’ last hope in the seventh inning when he struck out looking with runners on first and third. It was the first time in five games that he did not come through in a big situation.

One problem, he said, is that the rest of the offense keeps waiting for him to come through.

“You play so hard to get to this point, then you feel it all come down on you, like you have to do everything all the time,” Strawberry said. “You are always feeling like you have to be the one. . . . I was hoping that wasn’t the case here, but I think it is.”

Strawberry added: “Winning this thing will take a total team effort. That’s why the Braves are doing so good. And that’s what we need more of around here.”

The Dodgers cut it to 3-1 on Mike Scioscia’s run-scoring fly ball in the fourth inning, then made a move against just-entered Brantley in the seventh. Pinch-hitter Dave Hansen opened with a single past second baseman Robby Thompson and Butler walked.

Chris Gwynn, batting for Mike Sharperson, hit Brantley’s first pitch high and down the right-field foul line. The ball barely drifted foul before it left the park.

“I was doing everything to get it fair . . . using my body, trying to blow it . . . everything,” Gwynn said.

But three pitches later, Gwynn struck out swinging.

Up stepped Strawberry, who took a first-pitch ball. But he swung and missed two pitches, fouled off another, then looked at strike three as celebrations began in the stands.

The Dodger problems started early. Martinez was in trouble after only one hitter. With one out in the first inning, Willie McGee, contending for his second consecutive batting championship, singled to center. Then Clark, on a 2-and-2 pitch, launched a home run high over the left-field fence.

After striking out Kevin Mitchell, Martinez was soon kicking the ground. On a 2-and-2 pitch to Williams, Martinez hung the ball and Williams powered it down the left-field line for a home run. Bass later homered against reliever John Candelaria.

The only bright spot for the Dodgers was that Butler tied a National League record for errorless games in one season by an outfielder with 159. He could break Curt Flood’s record, set in 1966, today.