Wells’ start begins just perfectly

SAN FRANCISCO -- The old man by the sea was dealing.

Back from a seven-game suspension, David Wells looked like the David Wells of seasons past, taking a perfect game into the sixth inning and giving up two runs over seven innings in the Dodgers’ 6-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday at AT&T; Park.

The 44-year-old, 250-pound Wells (7-8) picked up his second win in three starts for the Dodgers, this victory at the waterfront stadium keeping his new club 2 1/2 games back of the San Diego Padres in the National League wild-card race with 20 games remaining.

Four times over the sixth and seventh innings, the Giants were a hit away from erasing a three-run lead the Dodgers had taken on Luis Gonzalez’s home run against Barry Zito in the first inning. Four times, Wells escaped without giving up the score-tying blow.

“It’s all about the makeup and what the guy’s got inside his heart and stomach and he’s got a lot of room in there,” Manager Grady Little said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

The Dodgers sealed the win by scoring three runs in a three-hit ninth inning.

The previous evening’s loss, which included the blowing of a seventh-inning lead and a walk-off home run, was long forgotten. The sour memory disappeared when players walked into the clubhouse finding the pitcher nicknamed “Boomer” booming rock music.

“It’s just his mentality and the way he goes about things,” Gonzalez said. “It relaxes everybody. He hasn’t been around here long, but you can tell having a veteran presence in the rotation means a lot.”

Wells himself had to erase an unpleasant memory, that of a bullpen session Tuesday in Chicago that he described as “absolutely terrible.” He and pitching coach Rick Honeycutt fixed his delivery, and he threw again with better results two days later.

With Barry Bonds, Ray Durham and Bengie Molina out of the Giants’ lineup, Wells retired the first 16 batters he faced. He admitted to thinking about the perfect game he pitched for the New York Yankees against the Minnesota Twins in 1998 “a little bit, but not much.”

Said catcher Russell Martin: “He keeps hitters off balance with his curveball because it’s so much slower than the rest of his pitches.”

Kevin Frandsen was the Giants’ first hitter to reach base, doing so in the sixth inning on a one-out single to left field.

Wells lasted five innings in his first two starts with the Dodgers, but when asked if he could’ve lasted nine if his perfect game was still intact, he replied, “Hell yeah. You dig down deeper and find some way to do it. Hopefully, the manager doesn’t come out and get you or say, ‘That’s enough,’ when you come in because then there might be a fight on his hands.”

Wells not only lost his perfect game in the sixth inning, but also his shutout, as the Giants’ first run was scored on a throwing error by Shea Hillenbrand. With a man on first base, Rajai Davis hit a dribbler toward short that was intercepted by a fast-charging Hillenbrand, who quickly tossed the ball to second base to get the force out, but it hit baserunner Scott McClain and went into left field.

McClain scored and Davis went to second base. Davis scored on a triple by Nate Schierholtz to cut the Dodgers’ lead to 3-2.

But Schierholtz never scored and neither did Pedro Feliz, who led off the seventh inning with a double.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com