They’re still on a Bay city roll

The Dodgers lost a five-run cushion in the eighth and ninth innings. They made three errors and couldn’t find a couple of other balls in the sun. They watched Takashi Saito register consecutive blown saves for the first time in his two major league seasons and emptied their bullpen to the point where they had to use their scheduled Tuesday starter in relief.

But they won.

The first-place Dodgers needed 12 innings, 17 hits and seven arms to pull out an 8-7 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday at AT&T; Park, with James Loney scoring the decisive run on a sacrifice fly by Rafael Furcal.

The victory was the Dodgers’ 10th in a row in San Francisco, their longest such streak in 30 years.

“It was a huge effort on the whole club’s part,” Dodgers Manager Grady Little said. “They kept scrapping.”

Among those scrapping was Mark Hendrickson, who remains scheduled to face the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday in the second game of a seven-game homestand. Hendrickson earned the victory by pitching two scoreless extra innings.

“I think you play for today and deal with tomorrow tomorrow,” he said.

Hendrickson said he wanted to help Little save Eric Stults for today’s game, in which the Dodgers will start Brett Tomko, who hasn’t started a game in nearly two months. Little figures Tomko will throw 85 pitches at most.

Rudy Seanez pitched a perfect 12th to notch his first save in six seasons.

With the game taking a severe toll on the Dodgers’ short bullpen, Little said a roster move to add a 12th pitcher was being discussed.

That the game would become a 4-hour 1-minute marathon seemed improbable in the fifth inning, when the Dodgers posted their second six-run inning in as many days to take a 6-0 lead.

Wilson Betemit hit a solo home run against Matt Morris to start the surge, which was capped by a three-run homer by Jeff Kent. Betemit was four for six and was one of six Dodgers with multiple hits.

That allowed Dodgers starter Derek Lowe to leave the game after six innings with a comfortable 6-2 lead.

Lowe said he wasn’t bothered by having his first start after the All-Star break moved from Sunday to Monday to Saturday in the preceding 48 hours. The last of those moves was made Friday to give a blister on Brad Penny’s index finger a couple of extra days to heal.

Lowe said his routine wasn’t ruined because “there is no routine for the All-Star break,” adding that he would’ve pitched on prolonged rest regardless of when he took the mound.

Lowe, who was charged with one earned run, lowered his ERA to 3.05 and struck out six.

The Dodgers increased their lead to 7-2 in the seventh, when Juan Pierre scored on a single by Kent.

But the game took a sudden turn in the eighth when the Dodgers called on Chin-hui Tsao.

Tsao loaded the bases and surrendered a grand slam to Randy Winn that pulled the Giants within 7-6. Winn rounded the bases and then left the game, his right foot having been bruised from a foul ball on the previous pitch.

In the ninth, the once-automatic Saito couldn’t protect what remained of the once-vast margin.

Saito walked Barry Bonds, who moved to second on a hit-and-run groundout by Ryan Klesko and eventually scored on a two-out single by Pedro Feliz. The run was the lone highlight in an otherwise unproductive day for Bonds, in which the left fielder was 0 for 5 with two strikeouts to remain four home runs shy of Hank Aaron’s all-time record of 755.

Loney prevented the Giants from taking the game in the 10th with the same glove that had failed him in the first inning when fielding a throw from Furcal.

Loney speared a sharply hit ball by Kevin Frandsen down the first-base line and, by doing so, kept Fred Lewis from scoring from second.

“I thought the game was over,” Giants Manager Bruce Bochy said.

Loney had shifted closer to the bag upon seeing Frandsen hit a similar ball that went foul earlier in the at-bat.

Loney doubled to lead off the 12th and advanced to third on a pop-fly single by Betemit, putting him in position to tag up on Furcal’s fly ball to right.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

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Their kind of town

A look at the Dodgers’ 10-game win streak in San Francisco:

*--* 2006 SCORE WINNING PITCHER Aug. 18 14-7 Greg Maddux Aug. 20 5-2 Derek Lowe Sept. 29 4-3 Jonathan Broxton Sept. 30 4-2 Greg Maddux Oct. 1 4-3 Chad Billingsley 2007 SCORE WINNING PITCHER April 6 2-1 Brad Penny April 7 4-1 Derek Lowe April 8 10-4 Randy Wolf July 13 9-1 Chad Billingsley July 14 8-7* Mark Hendrickson

*--*

* -- 12 innings

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Source: baseball-reference.com