Dodgers Wring Up a Victory

The Dodgers announced before Monday night’s game that pitcher Kevin Brown would miss the rest of the season because of a back injury.

By the time left fielder Brian Jordan was through pounding his teammates in the third inning with some of the most violent high-fives in recent Dodger Stadium history, the Dodgers may have needed MRI tests on a few dozen rotator cuffs.

Jordan sent a surge of energy through his dugout and stadium and threw a charge back into Dodger playoff hopes, erasing a three-run deficit with a third-inning grand slam that sent the Dodgers toward a dramatic 7-6 victory over the San Francisco Giants before a crowd of 35,767.

Closer Eric Gagne recorded five outs for his 49th save, and Marquis Grissom made a game-saving catch in the ninth as the Dodgers, who had lost eight of their previous 11 games, won the opener of a crucial four-game series and pulled even with the Giants atop the National League wild-card standings with 12 games to go.

Grissom, who entered as a pinch-hitter in the seventh, robbed Rich Aurilia of a home run with a spectacular leaping catch at the center-field wall to lead off the ninth.

Gagne struck out Jeff Kent and, after an intentional walk to Barry Bonds, who had homered in his previous at-bat, Gagne struck out Benito Santiago to end a game that was so emotionally draining, so tension-filled, that Dodger Manager Jim Tracy called it “the greatest game I’ve ever been involved with in all of my life.”

It might not have turned out so great for Tracy and the Dodgers had Jordan not turned a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 lead with his third-inning grand slam off Giant starter Jason Schmidt.

“That was as big a home run as I’ve ever experienced in my career,” Dodger right fielder Shawn Green said. “Not only the home run but the momentum we needed at the right time.... It was incredible. It was just huge.”

So was Dodger right-hander Hideo Nomo, who struggled through the first three innings, in which he gave up three runs, two on homers by Kent and Aurilia.

But he closed with three scoreless innings to complete a six-inning, three-run effort that improved him to 15-6 this season and 11-3 with a 2.63 earned-run average against the Giants in his career.

Nomo has one loss in 24 starts dating to May 17, and the Dodgers have won 20 of those games, but they had to sweat out a few tense moments Monday after Adrian Beltre’s two-run double gave them a 6-3 lead in the seventh.

With a runner on second and first base open, Tracy decided to challenge Bonds, replacing right-hander Paul Shuey with 45-year-old left-hander Jesse Orosco, who had limited Bonds to a .125 average (three for 24) and one homer.

Bonds must have been due--he lined a two-run homer, his 44th, to right-center, trimming the Dodger lead to 6-5.

Right-hander Paul Quantrill came on to retire Santiago on a groundout, and Dodger first baseman Eric Karros tacked on a huge insurance run in the bottom of the seventh when he hit his 12th homer of the season for a 7-5 lead.

The Giants made it 7-6 in the eighth when Tom Goodwin doubled and scored on Beltre’s fielding error, but Gagne got Bill Mueller to pop to third and struck out Kenny Lofton to end the inning.

Then came Grissom’s catch in the ninth, Santiago’s strikeout, and another fist-pumping save by Gagne with the crowd on its feet.

The Dodgers trailed, 3-0, in the third when Alex Cora singled and Dave Roberts bunted for a single. With two outs, Schmidt walked Green to load the bases.

Up stepped Jordan, who last year hit a dramatic two-out grand slam in the bottom of the ninth, capping a seven-run rally that gave Atlanta an 8-5 win over the New York Mets on Sept. 29.

Another grand slam appeared to be on Jordan’s mind, because he swung so hard at Schmidt’s first pitch, a 95-mph fastball, he nearly fell out of the batter’s box.

But instead of going with an off-speed pitch, Schmidt tried to pump another fastball by Jordan. It was belt-high, down the middle, and Jordan pounced on it, lining his sixth career grand slam to left for a 4-3 lead and setting off a wild celebration throughout the stadium.

“There was a lot of electricity when I hit the grand slam,” said Jordan, who has knocked in 20 runs in September. “That’s the first time I’ve seen the L.A. fans react that way. It excited us as a team.”