Florida bunt wins it in 10th

For 8 1/3 innings Friday, Chad Billingsley looked to be more lucky than good.

Needing a big effort to rest the Dodgers’ weary bullpen, the best Billingsley could muster was a shaky five innings he spent pitching mostly out of the stretch.

But after leaving for a pinch-hitter trailing, 3-0, Billingsley watched his teammates rally for five runs in the fifth, leaving him in position to pick up the win anyway. And that’s when his luck took a turn for the worse with the tired bullpen giving the lead away when usually dependable closer Takashi Saito gave up a game-tying ninth-inning double to Florida’s Miguel Cabrera.

Hanley Ramirez then surprised the Dodgers with a two-out RBI bunt single in the 10th off Brett Tomko, giving the Marlins a 6-5 victory.

The Dodgers had a chance to tie for the National League West lead since San Diego lost to Atlanta earlier Friday. And they were poised to take advantage of that when Saito, the most effective closer in history with 47 saves in 50 chances, came on to start the ninth. But after striking out Ramirez, he walked Dan Uggla before Cabrera drilled a low liner over shortstop Rafael Furcal’s head to the track in left-center, bringing Uggla home.

Until their most dependable pitcher was tripped up, the bullpen did a good job keeping the Dodgers in the game with Rudy Seanez stranding two runners on base to end the seventh and Jonathan Broxton leaving the tying run aboard again in the eighth. All of which left Billingsley in line for the win -- a better result than the right-hander had reason to expect considering the way things started Friday, when Ramirez lined Billingsley’s second pitch into the left-field pavilion to give Florida a 1-0 lead.

And that turned out to be one of his better innings. Billingsley allowed runners into scoring position in each of the five innings he worked, with the Marlins getting two more of them home in the third on Mike Jacobs’ RBI single and a run-scoring groundout by Josh Willingham.

And they would have had at least one more in the fifth had Matt Kemp not taken another RBI away from Jacobs with a leaping catch at the right-field wall.

Meanwhile Marlins starter Dontrelle Willis was holding the Dodgers in check, setting down 10 of the first 11 batters he faced. But after loading the bases and failing to score in the fourth, the Dodgers finally broke through with two outs in the fifth on an RBI single by Juan Pierre, the godfather to Willis’ child and the best man at the pitcher’s wedding.

Russell Martin tied the score three pitches later with his 10th homer of the season and before the inning was over the Dodgers had batted around, getting two more runs on a booming RBI double by Luis Gonzalez and Hermida’s error on Nomar Garciaparra’s fly ball.

The Marlins refused to go quietly, however, pulling to within a run on Ramirez’s second home run of the game in the seventh. But the Dodgers escaped that inning when Seanez won an eight-pitch battle with Willingham, striking him out with two runners on.

kevin.baxter@latimes.com