SAN FRANCISCO -- Troy Glaus crushed a line drive through the hearts of Giants fans in the third inning, his seventh home run of the playoffs.

	Kenny Lofton showed a surgeon's touch -- and a lottery winner's luck -- on his fifth-inning bunt single.

Barry Bonds sent one to Saturn in Game 1 and another to Pluto in Game 2.

Kenny Lofton certainly can't match Glaus or Bonds in the power department, but his bunt single in the fifth inning of Wednesday's Game 4 was a true Frozen Moment -- the ball seemed to freeze to the foul line like your tongue to an icicle.

"Fair of foul?" Lofton asked. "I didn't know. I can't see. I was running to first."

It rolled and rolled, trickled along the grass, skirted onto the dirt, kissed the foul line, danced back fair, took a right turn -- and, momentarily, it seemed, in the blink of an eyelash -- rolled foul.

And then Glaus picked it up.

A nanosecond too late.

Fair ball.

"I thought it was fair for awhile, then it was teetering back," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "Troy thought it was just off the line or on the edge of the line when he picked it up. It was close."

The Giants were trailing 3-0, their World Series hopes hanging by the width of Dusty Baker's toothpick, but runners were now on first and second and the big boys were coming to the plate.

"Anything can turn the game around," Lofton said. "A hit there, a bloop there. You can't think this is the play that will get the rally started."

If that ball rolls foul, or if Glaus picks it up at the exact moment he needed to, then maybe John Lackey retires Lofton on the next pitch and the rally ends in the chilly breeze of Pac Bell Park before the fans could even warm up with the thumping of their cheer sticks.

Baseball is a game of inches? Sometimes it's a game of the right length of grass and the right texture of dirt on the third-base line.

The bottom of the fifth started innocently enough. Pitcher Kirk Rueter was allowed to hit, even though the Giants were down 3-0; he chopped a ball along the first-base line and managed to just beat the throw from Lackey.

Then Lofton stepped in. He had squared to bunt in his first at-bat, before finally swinging away and reaching on an infield single. He had squared to bunt twice the night before in Game 3. So Glaus was creeping in. He was ready for the fleet-footed center fielder to sneak one down the line.

But the bunt was as perfect as a Barry Bonds swing. Glaus had no choice but to let it roll and hope it rolled foul.

"I'm just trying to get on base and let the guys behind me do their magic," Lofton said of his bunt. "I just want to get on base. Today, it worked out."

A game of centimeters
The gates then opened on Lackey, who -- pitching on his 24th birthday -- had earlier escaped two bases-loaded situations by getting Benito Santiago to ground into two double plays.

Rich Aurilia lined an RBI single to right-center to score Rueter, sending Lofton scampering to third. Jeff Kent delivered a sacrifice fly to right field, making it 3-2 and sending Aurilia to second when Tim Salmon's throw escaped to the backstop.

"(Rueter and Lofton) got a rally started and they capitalized on it," Scioscia said. "There's nothing cheap about it. That's the game."

Bonds was intentionally walked for the third time in the game.

And then Santiago, heading into the books for possibly the anti-clutch World Series game of all time, drilled a single into center field. Aurilia scored, game tied, life restored to Pac Bell, birthday wishes don't always come true, World Series all squared (when the Giants scored the winning run in the eighth inning), Game 6 tickets now valid, the Rally Monkey not yet heading to the postseason lecture circuit.

All because of one trickling fair ball.

If the Giants win the World Series, remember Kenny Lofton's fifth-inning bunt.

Sometimes it's the little things.

David Schoenfield is the baseball editor for ESPN.com.