Watered-Down Win for Dodgers : Baseball: Martinez beats the heat when infield sprinklers go on in fifth, and he helps end L.A.’s four-game slump by beating Steve Avery and Atlanta, 5-3.

During their long, muggy weekend here, the Dodgers would have likened a victory to a run through a sprinkler.

Monday, stunningly, they experienced both.

After an eruption of the infield sprinklers with two out in the fifth inning, the Dodgers completed a night of the bizarre with a 5-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves, ending the Braves’ nine-game win streak.

One minute, Ramon Martinez and Carlos Hernandez were sticking their heads under geysers of water.

The next minute, Martinez was recording his third consecutive victory, and Hernandez was collecting three hits in a game for the first time in his career.

It was the Dodgers’ first victory in seven games here this season and fifth victory in their last 30 road games. It also ended a four-game losing streak.

“It’s a wonder (the sprinklers) didn’t get the field flooded so we couldn’t get our ‘W,’ ” Mitch Webster said.

Eric Karros was having the same concerns.

“I was thinking, ‘Now (Otis) Nixon is going to hit something that skids right through the infield,”’ he said.

The water might wash away memories of the Dodgers’ season-high 15 hits, 11 against nemesis Steve Avery.

And the memories of Jim Gott’s fifth save, which included retiring Terry Pendleton on a grounder to end the game with runners on first and second.

Coming soon to a blooper tape near you, the sprinkler incident occurred with the Dodgers leading 3-1 in the fifth inning. Nixon was batting and runners were on first and second.

Nixon fouled off Martinez’s first pitch down the third base line, then the sprinklers went on.

Everyone in the infield jumped, particularly Nixon and Hernandez--perhaps because a couple of the sprinklers are aimed directly at home plate.

“I thought somebody had thrown a bucket of water on the field,” Nixon said.

No, somebody on the grounds crew had forgotten to change a timing device that had been set for 9 p.m. the previous two days.

Hernandez didn’t know what to think.

“I was scared,” he admitted.

But not for long. When he realized what had happened, he stuck his face under a gusher. So did Martinez, who had been laboring in 80-degree heat.

“I think it helped him out a lot, (the sprinklers) were actually a good idea,” Hernandez said.

Less than a minute after the sprinklers started, they stopped. And Karros sighed.

“Hey man, I’ve been sprinkled out before,” he said. “Once in Bakersfield during a game, the sprinklers started and nobody could figure out how to turn them off.”

Paul Runge, the umpires’ crew chief, said there is nothing in the rule books about sprinkler interference. But he said if Nixon had put the ball in play, it would not have counted.

“There would have been too many conjectures, like, ‘Did the water affect the fielder,’ ” Runge said. “So we would have just made them do it over.”

Martinez eventually induced Nixon into a popout to third baseman Mike Sharperson, making his first start this month. Dave Anderson was making his first start at shortstop in nearly two months.

But the most important start belonged to Martinez, who had watched the rest of the starting rotation give up 19 runs in 10 1/3 innings since his last starts.

Unlike the others, the heat and hopelessness of the season are only making Martinez better. In his last four starts, he is 3-1 with a 2.93 earned-run average.

“I come into the clubhouse today and I say, ‘OK guys, we’re going to have some fun,’ ” Martinez said. “Right now, it looks like everything is going different.”

For one night, everything was different for the Dodgers, while baseball’s hottest team strangely stumbled with two errors and one boneheaded baserunning move.

“Right now, I’d rather have their luck than a license to steal,” said Tom Lasorda, Dodger manager.

But with the Dodgers leading 4-3 and bases loaded in the seventh, John Candelaria struck out David Justice.

With runners apparently on first and second and none out in the eighth after Lenny Harris threw wildly to Anderson at second base, Brian Hunter slid past the base. Anderson took another throw from an alert Sharperson and tagged Hunter out.

Then, Gott ended the game by retiring Pendleton, who was batting .722 in his last 18 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“Sometimes you wonder if you are ever going to win a game,” Brett Butler said. “Sometimes you think, what if Pendleton hits a home run, and we’re walking off the field again, and everybody is cheering?

“That’s why this game was like a breath of fresh air.”

Or a bath.