Tape This Together, and It Still Works

The game ended with Eric Gagne standing in the final sliver of the afternoon, throwing gas at Deivi Cruz huddled in the evening.

Changeup ... sunlight ... shadows ... strikeout.

The Dodgers won with barely a minute to spare, against an opponent who never saw them coming, and how perfect was that?

“We’ll take all the breaks we can get,” said Jeff Weaver, shaking his head. “We’re just grinding it out.”

The chunk of soil in their wake is the San Francisco Giants. In clear sight is the unspoiled plains of the playoffs. A green-stained, sweat-darkened 7-4 victory over the Giants Sunday did the dirty work.

Their magic number? You can count it on exactly one hand.

The sort of hand that Jayson Werth wrapped around his bat at the beginning of the game for a battling, two-run home run.

The sort of hand that Gagne pumped at the end of the game after striking out Cruz.

Werth hit his homer only after lunging across home plate to foul off strike three, hit it on Brett Tomko’s next pitch, gave a lead to a team that is now 51-17 when it scores first.

“I was just trying to hang in there,” said Werth, and aren’t they all?

More than three hours later, Gagne followed his game-ending whiff by shouting at home plate umpire Charlie Reliford about an earlier missed call.

“I was just saying ‘good job’ to him in French,” said Gagne, with the sort of grin shared by all.

They are playing smart, hard and with considerable spunk, that magic number of five having been earned only four days after their season appeared to be in tatters.

Since Brad Penny re-injured his arm in San Diego, the Dodgers have won three of four, beating the Giants two out of three at SBC Park. If they make the playoffs, they will look at this stretch as defining the season and the team.

Equal parts duct tape and dirt, crossed fingers and clenched fists, Gibson’s limp and Gibson’s homer.

“We’ve been close for three years and now we’re in front. It’s really nice to be in that situation,” Gagne said.

On Sunday it was Weaver, struggling but realizing he couldn’t succumb because the bullpen is wiped out, dude!, so he lasted six innings, with a little unorthodox help.

The fourth inning, the score tied, 3-3, runners on first and second, one out, and a 2-and-0 count on Michael Tucker, pitching coach Jim Colborn came to the mound.

Did he tell his starter what to throw? Just the opposite.

“He says throw whatever you want, but throw it with conviction,” Weaver said. “He told me, ‘Just let it go.’ ”

Just as his teammates have been doing for six months and, sure enough, Weaver struck out Tucker and gave up only two hits during the remainder of his afternoon.

Sunday was also about Shawn Green, returning from his one-day Yom Kippur observance and the surrounding storm, and he was so frazzled he ... drew four walks, including one that drove in the go-ahead run.

“It’s a good time to be seeing the ball,” he said.

It was, finally, about Alex Cora, who went four for seven in the series with two homers and four runs batted in, and none of it was as impressive as one little flip Sunday.

Fifth inning, guys running off first and second, A.J. Pierzynski hit a grounder to Cora that should have resulted in only one out.

But the second baseman smartly saw that Green had faked out Cruz by acting as if he was going to receive a pickoff throw at first base, causing Cruz to get a late jump.

So Cora flipped the ball to Cesar Izturis at second base for the start of a rare hit-and-run double play.

“It wasn’t hard, I just threw the ball to the best shortstop in baseball,” Cora said, shrugging.

Cora botched a Barry Bonds grounder that led to a run in the seventh inning, but then, in the ninth inning, made a diving stop of a Pedro Feliz grounder that may have eventually saved the game.

Another perfect metaphor for a Dodger season, going through the legs one minute, peeking out of a glove like the perfect white snow cone the next minute.

“There were several times this year where the suggestion was, this is where you’re going to get ‘em,” said Manager Jim Tracy, referring to those who have consistently predicted his team’s doom. “But we’ve never backed off.”

The Giants, who trail the National League West-leading Dodgers by 2 1/2 games and played mostly awful this weekend, will be lucky to still be in the race when they comes to Dodger Stadium this weekend for the season’s final series.

By then, they will be greeted by a Dodger team that is finally ready for this, whether they know it or not.

“This is huge, but we still have six games to play,” Gagne said Sunday afternoon.

Um, Mr. Game Over? You have seven games to play.

“Seven?” said Gagne, laughing. “Oh, well ... “

For all the Dodgers, new math indeed.