Formula follows function as Dodgers beat Tigers for 12th win in 13 games
The Dodgers’ broken-record formula for winning, now spinning for two weeks, is as follows:
Starting pitcher throws solid game, hitters add a run here and there, the defense makes a key play or two and the relievers finish it off.
It’s equated to 12 wins in their last 13 games, the most recent a 6-4 victory over Detroit on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers now sit in first place in the National League West, two weeks after looking up from the bottom of the division on May 8, six games behind San Diego.
John Ely (3-1) won his third straight start by giving up two runs and eight hits in six innings, but the game opened with shades of his somewhat rough outing in his first start against the New York Mets on April 28.
In that game, Ely gave up five runs through the first three innings, but settled down from there. Saturday, he limited the damage to two first-inning runs, then didn’t allow any until he was pulled in the seventh inning.
“I don’t think he was as sharp today as he’s been, but he was able to fight his way through and do some good things,” Dodgers Manager Joe Torre said. “The kid, however, continues to impress me. He comes out here on a Saturday afternoon and he’s not fazed by anything.”
Ely did walk Brandon Inge in the first inning, snapping a streak of 89 batters faced without giving up a base on balls.
“I’m just trying to throw strikes, just trying to execute pitches,” Ely said. “I’m not really worried about walking people or not walking people. Walks are a part of the game.”
Manny Ramirez cut the Dodgers’ deficit to 2-1 with a sacrifice fly to left in the first and Casey Blake tied it in the second with a to left field, his sixth of the season.
In the fourth, the Dodgers added three more runs, two scoring on Blake DeWitt’s triple down the right-field line.
Matt Kemp, who leads the major leagues with 38 runs in 43 games, gave the Dodgers a 6-2 lead with his ninth home run in the fifth.
Ely was done two innings later, pulled for reliever Hong-Chih Kuo — a Taiwan native pitching on “Taiwan Day” at Dodger Stadium.
Kuo threw a scoreless inning, his 10th consecutive, before Torre turned it over to Ramon Troncoso, who hit Austin Jackson in the batting helmet with a pitch in the eighth inning, causing the crowd to fall silent.
Jackson stayed on the ground for several minutes but left the field under his own power. He was taken to a hospital as a precaution.
Things looked shaky in the ninth for the Dodgers, when Jonathan Broxton gave up a run and Inge came to the plate as the potential winning run with two on and two out. But Broxton struck him out to earn his 10th save, as the formula would have it.
“We’re throwing the ball great,” said Blake, whose homer was his third in five games. “That’s the story.”
It wasn’t all gravy for the Dodgers. Russell Martin’s career-long 15-game hitting streak ended when he went 0 for 3.
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