Dodgers Run Low on Magic

Freddy Sanchez and Jack Wilson might help senior citizens cross the street. They might hold open elevator doors for the slow and infirm.

But to the Dodgers’ chagrin, respect for their elders is not something the two 28-year-old Pittsburgh Pirates bring to the ball field.

Sanchez and Wilson collected seven hits and scored four runs against veterans Greg Maddux and Aaron Sele in the Pirates’ 6-4 victory Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium.

Since the miraculous comeback against San Diego on Monday, the Dodgers have fallen twice to the lowly Pirates.

Momentum, it seems, ends with the dawn of a new day.

“That game made history, and right now it is history,” Manager Grady Little said.

In both games, a short stint by the starter was followed by such shoddy relief pitching that more late-inning Dodgers power couldn’t overcome it. J.D. Drew hit a two-run pinch-hit home run in the seventh to cut the deficit to two, but James Loney’s drive with a runner on in the eighth was flagged down on the warning track and Jeff Kent struck out to end the game with the bases loaded in the ninth.

“We just kept battling,” Little said. “It came right down to the last out.”

And the race for the playoffs could continue until the last game of the season. The Dodgers remained half a game behind the Padres in the National League West but were caught by the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild-card race with 10 to play.

Maddux lacked his typical pinpoint control and the Pirates got to him in the third. Jose Bautista led off with a home run on a line drive that barely cleared the center-field fence.

Balls have carried farther than usual this homestand, and Maddux was left muttering at what seemed like a double when it left the bat.

The damage wasn’t over. With two out, Wilson singled and Sanchez -- the NL’s leading hitter -- hit his second double, giving the Pirates a 2-0 lead.

Maddux’s pitch count was higher than his customary rate of about 10 pitches an inning. He reached 73 to get the second out of the fifth, a bunt that catcher Russell Martin fielded, but the next three batters had hits to produce the third Pirates run.

The second of the three hits was a single by Sanchez, giving him three hits against Maddux. Wilson had two, and scored two runs.

“I made some good pitches they hit and a few I’d like to have back,” Maddux said.

Wilson and Sanchez cut Sele no slack when he came on in relief. They followed Chris Duffy’s single with hits and pulled off a double steal that resulted in Wilson’s scoring when Martin’s throw to third went into left field. Sanchez scored on a double by Xavier Nady.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, took until the fifth to figure out right-hander Shawn Chacon, who hasn’t been able to figure out himself often in posting a 5.12 career earned-run average.

A double by Martin and triple by Rafael Furcal highlighted a two-run fifth, and the Dodgers answered the Pirates’ three-run seventh with two runs in the bottom of the inning on another hit by Martin and Drew’s 18th home run.

A string of Pirates relievers did a tightrope act through the Dodgers lineup in the eighth and ninth. Salomon Torres got the save despite giving up a single to Drew, hitting Rafael Furcal with a pitch and walking Nomar Garciaparra.

But he struck out Kent on a full-count breaking ball, sending Pirates Manager Jim Tracy into a hand-clapping frenzy. Tracy, of course, was the Dodgers manager the last five years before getting fired, leading them to their last playoff appearances in 2004.

He must have enjoyed the last two games, but the Dodgers aren’t interested in score-settling, only scoring more runs than the opposition and staying with the Padres and Phillies.

“We’re all right,” Maddux said. “And we’re right there. We’ll keep playing hard.”

steve.henson@latimes.com