The Late, Great Dodgers

Time is running out on the San Francisco Giants and the folks at dodgerblues.com, the website that lampoons every Dodger foible.

Just when it appeared the Dodgers were headed for a particularly deflating defeat Monday night at Dodger Stadium, they rallied for three late runs and a wild 8-7 victory over the Colorado Rockies to move three games ahead of the idle Giants in the National League West with six games to play.

The Dodgers scored two runs in the eighth and one in the ninth on a night starter Edwin Jackson had put them in a bind by giving up a career-high six runs in only 3 1/3 innings.

Milton Bradley’s bases-loaded single past drawn-in second baseman Aaron Miles in the ninth drove in Jayson Werth with the winning run and prompted the Dodgers to race out of the dugout in celebration. Bradley raced toward first base with his arms extended after reducing the Dodgers’ magic number to four.

“Don’t walk someone to get to me,” said Bradley, who stepped to the plate after reliever Steve Reed intentionally walked Adrian Beltre with one out to load the bases. “It’s not personal, it’s just common sense.”

The Dodgers’ 50th comeback victory moved them closer to clinching their first playoff berth in eight years and resetting a counter on dodgerblues.com that lists, at 5,825 days and counting, the “time since the last great Dodgers moment,” during the 1988 World Series.

If the Dodgers (90-66) win only half of their remaining games, the Giants (87-69) would need to go 6-0 over the final week to force a one-game playoff Monday at SBC Park.

“We’re enjoying every moment,” said Beltre, who hit his third grand slam of the season to give the Dodgers a 5-2 lead in the second, “but the job is not done yet.”

After striking out in his first three at-bats, Shawn Green delivered a crucial run-scoring single under the glove of Miles in the eighth to draw the Dodgers to within 7-6. Pinch-hitter Robin Ventura’s grounder that nicked Reed’s glove allowed Bradley to score the tying run.

Werth got things started for the Dodgers in the ninth with a one-out single to left. Steve Finley followed with a single to left-center, sending Werth to third, before Reed walked Beltre to bring up Bradley.

“We get behind four or five runs, we know we have the talent to come back,” said Beltre, who took a curtain call in the second after driving in his 118th, 119th, 120th and 121st runs this season, as the crowd of 36,958 roared its approval.

Handed a three-run cushion following Beltre’s slam, Jackson folded faster than a lawn chair, allowing two runs in the third and three in fourth.

The right-hander surrendered two homers and would have been charged with a third had third-base umpire Jim Joyce not ruled that a fan interfered with Shawn Estes’ fourth-inning drive into the left-field corner.

“I left pitches up, I missed locations ... and they took advantage of it,” said Jackson, who gave up a two-run homer to Vinny Castilla in the third and a leadoff homer to Brad Hawpe in the fourth.

One out later, Estes hit what appeared to be another homer before Joyce ruled that a fan had reached over the left-field fence to touch the ball. The fan was removed by stadium security, but Estes, sent back to second base after his home-run trot, scored anyway when Miles drilled a single off reliever Scott Stewart. Todd Helton’s double later in the inning scored Miles to increase the Rockies’ lead to 7-5.

Estes found his rhythm after yielding the homer to Beltre, retiring 16 of the next 17 Dodgers before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the eighth. Colorado relievers Brian Fuentes (zero innings, two runs) and Reed (1 1/3 innings, one run) couldn’t protect the lead, making a winner of Dodger reliever Yhency Brazoban (4-1), who retired the only batter he faced in the ninth.

“It’s going to be tough for the Giants to catch us,” Beltre said afterward, “but we can’t fall asleep.”