Wednesday, September 04, 2002
Dodgers 3, Diamondbacks 2
The Associated Press
PHOENIX — The Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the NL West race, and Kazuhisa Ishii is staying in their rotation. Adrian Beltre homered for the second night in a row and Ishii shut out Arizona into the sixth inning as the Dodgers beat the Diamondbacks 3-2 Tuesday night.
On the heels of their 19-1 rout of Arizona on Monday, the Dodgers won their fourth straight. In eight days, Los Angeles has sliced Arizona's division lead from nine games to four.
“I thought we were in the thick of it over the weekend,” Dodgers manager Jim Tracy said. “It's thicker now.”
Kevin Brown relieved Ishii with the bases loaded and one out in the sixth inning and struck out Greg Colbrunn. Left-hander Jesse Orosco fanned Erubiel Durazo to escape the jam.
Eric Gagne, the last of six Dodgers pitchers, got four outs for his 47th save in 51 opportunities. Two of his blown saves came against Arizona, the latest a week ago.
Pinch-hitter Mark Grace led off the ninth with a double and scored on Chris Donnels' sacrifice fly to cut it to 3-2. But Tony Womack grounded out to end the game.
Los Angeles has beaten Arizona four straight and five times in their last six meetings. The Dodgers have won 15 of 19 overall.
The Diamondbacks, losers of six of seven, will try to avoid a sweep when they send Randy Johnson to the mound in search of his 20th victory Wednesday.
“It should be very interesting,” Diamondbacks manager Bob Brenly said. “The way this Dodger club has been swinging the bat and as aggressive as we know Randy is, something's got to give.”
Ishii (14-9), who had his start pushed back a few days in hopes he would regain his early-season form, won for just the second time in nine starts.
“To me that's arguably as good a performance as he's had all year,” Tracy said. “The key to his outing tonight was his fastball command. It was as good as I've seen it all year long.”
Tracy had held off naming a starter for Sunday's game against Houston. After Tuesday night's performance, he said Ishii was the man.
“Of course I want to remain a starter for the full entire year,” Ishii said through a translator. “Because of that I felt that I had to come out and pitch well today.”
Brian Anderson (6-10) gave up Beltre's two-run homer in the first inning, then shut down the Dodgers until Paul Lo Duca's RBI double with two outs in the seventh.
“We're just not clicking right now,” Anderson said.
Lo Duca took third on the throw home, and Mike Koplove relieved Anderson and retired Beltre to end the inning.
Arizona scored in the seventh against reliever Paul Shuey on pinch-hitter David Dellucci's single and a pinch-hit double by Donnels.
Ishii, the runaway major league-leader in walks with 102, didn't walk a batter until the sixth inning. He allowed four hits, struck out four and matched his season low with two walks.
“Our game plan against him was to be patient and let him try to pitch himself into trouble,” Brenly said. “He threw a lot of strikes and caught us by surprise.”
Arizona allowed a run in the first inning for the sixth time in eight games.
With one out, Lo Duca reached on shortstop Womack's error, then Beltre hit Anderson's 2-0 pitch 412 feet into the left-field seats for his 19th home run of the season.
Ishii, 3-0 with a 1.06 ERA against Arizona, got in trouble in the sixth when Womack reached on a bunt single and Junior Spivey and Luis Gonzalez walked.
Brown, pitching out of the bullpen as he works his way back from back surgery, got Colbrunn on a called third strike. Orosco then struck out Durazo with a curve after the big first baseman hit a monster foul ball onto the facing in the upper deck of Bank One Ballpark's right field.
“I've got a guy right now who's a pretty good bullpen guy,” Tracy said of Brown. “He comes out and he's going to try to entice a groundball and-or he has the capability of striking somebody out. Beyond that, Erubiel was going to have to get a base hit off of Jesse because that in my mind was the biggest moment in the game.”
Notes: The Dodgers scored first for the eighth time in nine games. They are 62-16 when scoring first. ... Second baseman Spivey made a diving stop to rob Ishii of a hit in the second inning. ... Shuey allowed a run for the first time in seven outings.
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Dodgers 3, Diamondbacks 2 
