Rookie Joe Martinez, into his fifth inning of stellar work for the San Francisco Giants, delivered the 0-2 pitch to the Dodgers’ Russell Martin. Martin, who hadn’t managed a loud foul off Martinez all night, stung a bouncing ball up the spine of the diamond.

It was a single all the way until Martinez, whose follow-through had propelled him toward the first base line, blindly stretched his left arm out behind his back. He didn’t see the ball, but he felt it smack into his glove.
Blind luck? Industrial strength mojo? How about a 1-4-3 double play?
For a moment on a cool, foggy Tuesday night, it appeared to be all the above. Martinez whirled and threw to second baseman Eugenio Velez for the force on the onrushing Rafael Furcal. It wasn’t a great throw, low and tailing toward Velez’s left foot, but a good second baseman makes the catch.
Velez never came close. Both Furcal and Martin were safe. The Giants’ 1-0 lead was not.
You’d hate to think that one moment might endure as a metaphor for the Giants’ unlikely 2009 season, but in its immediate wake such a notion was almost unavoidable. You had the pleasantly surprising start (Martinez, in just his second major league start, held the Dodgers in check over the first four innings). You had endearingly improbable story lines (Martinez’s ongoing comeback after having been hit in the head by a line drive in the season’s third game; Velez’s attempt to extend his 16-game hit streak).
You had a little mojo, a little magic, a loud crowd embracing the concept of meaningful baseball in August. You had a moment of riotous good fortune, sending hopes and dreams taking flight.
And then?
In the case of Tuesday night, the walls came tumbling down. The Dodgers, suddenly energized, teed off without mercy. Andre Ethier launched a booming double to right field, scoring Furcal and Martin. Manny Ramirez cranked a double into the leftfield corner, scoring Ethier. One out later, James Loney poked a single to right to score Ramirez.
And so on, and so forth, to the tune of a crushingly decisive 9-1 Dodgers victory.
Before you get all lathered up, we’ll say it for you: The Giants have 49 games remaining on the schedule. They may trail the Dodgers by 7 1/2 games in the National League West, but that’s a mountain they were never equipped to climb.
Colorado’s loss to woeful Pittsburgh on Tuesday meant the Giants remained just one game out in the wild-card chase. There’s no telling what kind of mojo, magic and come-what-may the next seven-plus weeks may hold. But we knew this three-game series against the Dodgers, which ends with Wednesday’s nooner, was never going to decide anything beyond how the Giants stack up against playoff-worthy competition.
Now we know. No surprise, by the way. The Dodgers have a lineup of professional, explosive, opportunistic hitters. The Giants do not.
The Dodgers make the defensive plays they have to make, and a few they have no business making. The Giants aren’t quite as sound or foolproof.
The Dodgers are loaded with fire-tested veterans, known quantities when it comes to big games. The Giants have an appealing core of young players who have never felt the heat of a meaningful stretch drive.
In that way, this group is reminiscent of the 1978 team, the one Vida Blue dubbed “the Little Orange Skateboard” in self-deprecating deference to Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine. Those Giants broke a string of four consecutive colorless, losing seasons. They were pitching heavy, offensively underdeveloped, lovable and shockingly competitive. They led the division from mid-May through mid-August, finished with 89 wins and are remembered fondly.
These Giants are still writing their story. If it doesn’t fulfill its early promise, we know where they can find the perfect cover shot.