Dodgers can’t forecast this

The weather forecast that was delivered to Joe Torre’s office was right.

But the details weren’t exact.

The miscalculation of the severity of the showers that hit Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night resulted in the Dodgers manager’s scratching Chad Billingsley from his scheduled start in the series finale against the San Francisco Giants and using him for one-third of a fifth inning that was rain-delayed for an hour and 14 minutes.

Billingsley was able to end his night at that point, but that option wasn’t afforded his teammates, who were forced to defrost for the 10:05 p.m. restart and endure a 2-1 loss to the Giants in front of what remained of a crowd of 43,217.

Fifth starter Esteban Loaiza took over for Billingsley and was charged with the loss.

Loaiza, who pitched 2 2/3 innings, retired the last two batters of the inning that Billingsley started, but allowed the Giants to break the 1-1 stalemate in the sixth. Loading the bases with one out, Loaiza gave up a sacrifice fly to left-center by Randy Winn that drove in Eugenio Velez.

The Dodgers loaded the bases in the seventh, but Tim Lincecum, who pitched on both sides of the weather-caused intermission, struck out Russell Martin looking to end the inning. They finished the game with only six hits.

The Dodgers were aware that rain would fall early in the contest.

Lon Rosenberg, the vice president of stadium operations, had relayed that information to Dodgers General Manager Ned Colletti and Giants Executive Vice President Larry Baer, according to Chief Operating Officer Dennis Mannion. Colletti passed along the intelligence to Torre and Giants General Manager Brian Sabean, who, in turn, passed it along to his manager, Bruce Bochy.

“Everything went the way we thought it would,” Mannion said.

Except for the manner in which the rain would fall.

“We didn’t expect it to drizzle that way,” Mannion said. “We thought the heavy rain would hit right away.”

The anticipation prompted Torre to pull Billingsley and start left-handed reliever Hong-Chih Kuo, who pitched three scoreless innings.

The Giants had the same misinformation, which is why they also scratched Lincecum and started unknown right-hander Merkin Valdez.

The Giants were the first to put their scheduled starter into the game, doing so in a fourth inning during which the Dodgers took a 1-0 lead on James Loney’s bloop single that drove in Russell Martin. Unlike Billingsley, Lincecum remained in the contest when it resumed and picked up the win by pitching a total of four innings over which he struck out four and gave up four hits.

When Billingsley entered the game, the light drizzle had become something considerably harder.

Billingsley gave up back-to-back one out singles that put men on the corners, followed by a wind-carried sacrifice fly to left-center by Aaron Rowand that was dropped by Andre Ethier that allowed Winn to tie the game at 1-1.

Then came the delay.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com