Dodgers win fifth straight to open homestand against Rockies

After a five-hour, 14-inning win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers didn’t get home until 4 a.m. Thursday. As a result, Manager Don Mattingly canceled batting practice.

Turns out they didn’t need it anyway, tallying 13 hits in a 6-1 win over the Colorado Rockies to open a four-game homestand.

The Dodgers got four RBIs from leadoff man Mark Ellis.

They have won 16 of the last 19, including their current five-game winning streak. On June 21, the Dodgers sat in last place 12 games under .500. Now, they find themselves just 1 1/2 games back of Arizona, who beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 5-3.

BOX SCORE: Dodgers 6, Colorado 1

Starting pitcher Chris Capuano gave Mattingly just what he asked for pregame, going 6 1/3 innings with eight strikeouts less than 20 hours after the Dodgers bullpen threw nine shutout innings.

Capuano, filling in for injured starter Stephen Fife, rebounded from his last start, when he gave up five runs in 4 1/3 innings in Colorado on July 4.

The Dodgers relied on pure speed and timely hitting to get on the board early, although it came from an unlikely source in third baseman Juan Uribe. Uribe scurried home from first in the second inning on a double by Jerry Hairston, but he would have been easily called out if Rockies catcher Wilin Rosario didn’t drop the relay throw home.

In his next at-bat, Uribe walked and stole second before Ellis singled home Uribe and Hairston to make it 3-0 in the fourth.

And it was Ellis (three for four) who broke the game open in a three-run eighth inning, driving a 2-2 fastball into left field with the bases loaded to drive in Hairston and catcher Tim Federowicz. Andre Ethier, who came in as a defensive substitute for center fielder Yasiel Puig (2 for 4), hit a sacrifice fly to push the score to 6-0.

But with a 3-0 lead in the seventh, Capuano got into a one-out jam with runners on first and second and the tying run at the plate. Mattingly went to Ronald Belisario out of the bullpen, who got third baseman Nolan Arenado to ground into an inning-ending double play on his first pitch.

Belisario handed the ball off to a beleaguered Brandon League in the ninth.

All-Star left fielder Carlos Gonzalez started the inning with a bang, crushing a 1-2 offering high into the right field bleachers to make it 6-1. But League settled down striking out the next two and getting Rosario to ground out to first to end the game.

On his bobblehead night, Dodgers first baseman Adrian Gonzalez went two for five in front of a sellout crowd.

Clayton Kershaw, who is 3-0 with a 1.08 earned-run average in his last three starts, will take the hill Friday against Juan Nicasio.