By Morris Phillips

Like smelling salts with extra-caustic, blue pellets sprinkled in, the Dodgers provided all the stimulant needed for the Giants to wake from their unfortunate pennant-push slumber over the weekend.

Unlike their uneven effort against the Padres, the Giants competed, showed emotion, ran the base paths like crazed demons, and battled into the night against the hated Dodgers on Monday. The result was the desired one, but only after 4 hours, 10 minutes and 13 innings did the Giants get past the Dodgers, 5-2.

The win allowed the Giants to freeze Los Angeles’ magic number at three to win the NL West and kept them even with the Pirates in the wild card race.  One more win at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday or Wednesday also would prevent the Giants from having to witness a possibly distasteful LA celebration in their midst.

Most importantly, Monday’s win ended a 2-6 Giants’ slump, including a three-game losing streak at the hands of the Padres that virtually shrunk the Giants’ post-season opportunities in half.  In those previous eight games, the Giants averaged fewer than two runs of offense, while the pitching staff offered little resistance by allowing more than five runs a ballgame.

On Monday, things looked a lot different as the Giants produced single runs in the first and third innings only to see the Dodgers tie things in the fifth.  But starting with the sixth, San Francisco’s bullpen was stellar, limiting the Dodgers to no hits over the final 7 1/3 innings.

Prior to the bullpen’s contribution, Giants’ starter Jake Peavy was as advertised in a truly, big game against the Dodgers, throwing seven innings, allowing four hits and two runs.  The former Padre carried a 14-3 lifetime mark against Los Angeles into Monday’s game and couldn’t enhance it.  But he kept the Giants from trailing while doing only microscopic damage to his 2.28 ERA lifetime against the Dodgers.

Gregor Blanco led the Giants’ 12-hit attack by going 2 for 7 with a first-inning homer and a bit of good fortune as he slipped rounding second base in the 13^th drawing the attention of the defense which allowed an alert Andrew Susac to score from third as well as Brandon Crawford.  Earlier in the inning, Susac broke the tie with his RBI single that scored Brandon Belt.

Rookie Joe Panik was 3 for 5 with a sacrifice, and Crawford and Belt contributed a pair of hits each.

Dodgers’ starter Dan Haren was good in what’s been an especially uneven year for him.  On Monday, he limited the Giants to just one hit over the first seven innings.

On Tuesday, the Giants turn to 18-game winner Madison Bumgarner in a matchup with 15-8 Zach Grienke at 7:05pm.