NATIONAL LEAGUE Giants' playoff hopes take another jolt, in 3-2 loss

The Giants fell 2 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the NL West.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants had their No. 2 starter on the mound. They had an electric atmosphere at SBC Park as 42,528 fans showed up for the rival Dodgers. They got more heroics from Barry Bonds.
Despite it all, the Giants' playoff hopes took another hit Friday after a 3-2 loss to the Dodgers.
They are now 2 1/2 games behind Los Angeles in the National League West standings, three games behind in the loss column. They are 11/2 games behind the Chicago Cubs in the race for the NL wild-card.
Dodgers starter Odalis Perez, who was winless in his last seven starts and had just two wins in his last 15, put together one of his best performances of the season in one of the biggest games of the year. He held the Giants to two runs on three hits in eight innings, striking out five and walking one.
The left-hander turned the game over to Eric Gagne in the ninth inning. The Giants loaded the bases with two out thanks to three consecutive walks by Gagne--one of them intentional, to Bonds--but Yorvit Torrealba ended the game by flying out to left.
Bonds blasts 702
Bonds put the Giants ahead 1-0 with a missile of a homer in the second inning. It was his 44th of the season and No. 702 of his career.
After looking at a strike on the first pitch, Bonds jumped all over Perez's next offering. Bonds ran all out as it appeared his line drive appeared would hit high off the wall. But it banked off the green tiling atop the right-field wall and bounced into the crowd.
Two batters later, Torrealba doubled the Giants' lead, lofting Perez's 1-2 pitch just over the 404-foot mark in left-center field for his sixth homer of the year.
Starter Kirk Rueter gave the lead back in the fourth inning, as his struggles finally caught up to him. Rueter had to pitch out of jams in each of the first three innings.
He escaped the first inning unscathed despite walking two batters. He made a leaping snag of a Brent Mayne line drive and doubled off Milton Bradley to end the second inning, negating Bradley's lead-off single. He got a double-play to end the third inning after consecutive singles by Cesar Izturis and Jayson Werth.
Rueter wasn't so fortunate in the fourth inning.
After a leadoff walk to Adrian Beltre, Shawn Green tied the game with a home run. Green golfed a 2-0 pitch that was low and over the middle, the ball landing a few rows deep just right of straight-away center field.
Rueter got the next batter, Bradley, to line out to center. But his first pitch to Jose Hernandez found its way to seats in left-center, just clearing the fence above the 404-foot marker.
Rueter gave up three singles in the fifth inning but prevented the Dodgers from scoring, thanks in large part to a diving catch by shortstop Deivi Cruz that started a double play. Rueter finally got his first 1-2-3 inning in the sixth.
He was pinch-hit for in the bottom of the sixth, ending his night after 91 pitches.
Rueter arguably did well giving up three runs, and the bullpen kept the deficit from growing. But the Giants offense couldn't bail out Rueter.
Retired 12 in row
Perez, now 2-5 with a 3.97 ERA in his career against the Giants, retired 12 straight batters after Torrealba's homer. He allowed just a sixth-inning walk to Ray Durham and a seventh-inning single to Edgardo Alfonzo before turning the game over to Gagne in the ninth.
Perez struck out Bonds twice, getting a called third strike on a full count in the fourth and getting him to chase and miss a breaking ball low and away in the seventh.
With the crowd trying to manufacture momentum with chants of "Beat L.A." in the bottom of the eighth inning, Perez silenced the crowd by shutting down the Giants on eight pitches.