Wild Goose-Bump Chase

It is the sweetest sound in baseball. It is Vin Scully during the final days of a pennant race, the golden voice of summer treating you to play-by-play of all the games that affect the race, all at once.

“To me, it’s goose-bump time,” Scully said. “It’ll be a goose-bump week.”

The goose bumps spread from coast to coast Wednesday, from Dodgers fans in Los Angeles to Dodgers players here, from the San Diego Padres playing in St. Louis to the Philadelphia Phillies playing in Washington. And, at the end of an exhilarating evening at three stadiums, the Dodgers moved ever closer to another goose-bump week next week.

The Dodgers beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-4, with Nomar Garciaparra picking up three hits, then leaving early for the second consecutive evening because of his strained oblique muscle. Manager Grady Little said Garciaparra would not start today.

The Phillies won in Washington, but the Padres lost in St. Louis. With four games to play, the Dodgers are one game behind San Diego in the National League West and one game ahead of Philadelphia for the NL wild card.

“If we win the next four, they can’t catch us,” pitcher Derek Lowe said.

And the Dodgers are hot, at the best time to get hot. They won for the fifth time in six games, and they could be days away from starting the playoffs, probably against the New York Mets, possibly against the Cardinals.

“It’s tough when other guys have a say in what you do next week, but we have the upper hand,” outfielder Andre Ethier said.

“I’m planning on being in New York or St. Louis.”

The Dodgers did not resemble a playoff team in the first five innings Wednesday, with the Rockies pounding Lowe for 10 hits and grabbing a 4-1 lead. At Coors Field, that is not fatal.

“This is the only place where I try to go into the game and all I think about is trying to stay in the game longer than the other starting pitcher,” Lowe said.

He did not succeed Wednesday, but he did win. He left after six innings and 90 pitches, by mutual consent with Little, so he can pitch Sunday, if necessary, on three days’ rest.

J.D. Drew tripled home two runs in the sixth inning, and the Dodgers trailed, 4-3. In the seventh, Ethier singled home the tying run as a pinch-hitter, and Kenny Lofton drove home the winning run on a force play, as Colorado shortstop Troy Tulowitzki made a wild relay throw on what should have been an inning-ending double play.

Jeff Kent doubled home an insurance run, and Little wasn’t messing around from there. The Dodgers’ seventh-inning relievers have been roughed up, so Little eliminated them on this night, demanding two innings from setup man Jonathan Broxton for the first time since July 23.

Broxton held the Rockies hitless in the seventh and eighth. Takashi Saito worked the ninth for his 22nd save, setting a Dodgers rookie record.

The Dodgers then retreated to their clubhouse to watch the final innings of the Phillies-Nationals game, with Little shooing reporters out of his office after his postgame interview so he could watch too.

The biggest hit might have come from Ethier, the rookie who suddenly lost his stroke and then lost his job to Marlon Anderson. Ethier had no hits in the previous 10 days, one in the previous 21 days.

“It feels better when you can contribute,” he said.

Even when he cannot, he said, he’s savoring the pennant race.

“How can you complain when you’ve got one of the best seats while you’re trying to get to October?” he said. “I have nothing to complain about at all.”

Lowe, who has not lost since Aug. 9, recorded his seventh consecutive victory and 16th overall, tying Brad Penny for the team and National League lead. The Dodgers have not had two 16-game winners since Orel Hershiser and Tim Leary in 1988.

That was a goose-bump year.

bill.shaikin@latimes.com