Dodgers Winning, at Least

A year ago, Andy Ashby was about to undergo season-ending elbow surgery, Eric Gagne was looking over his shoulder awaiting his next demotion to the minor leagues and Brian Jordan was playing the outfield for the Atlanta Braves.

Saturday, that unlikely trio led the Dodgers to an improbable 2-0 win over the division-leading Arizona Diamondbacks. Improbable because the Dodgers could muster but two hits in a pitching duel that lasted only two hours in front of 41,516 at Dodger Stadium.

Ashby allowed five hits in eight innings, Gagne pitched a perfect ninth for his major league-leading 19th save and Jordan’s two-run home run was the difference.

“That’s saying a lot about your pitching,” Jordan said of the Dodgers’ ability to win with minimal offensive output. “Andy did a great job today. We needed to shut them down.”

“That was a tremendous pitching performance by Andy Ashby, that’s all you can say,” Manager Jim Tracy said. “Eight shutout innings, the number of ground balls, the double-play balls that he got, never really in trouble, throwing strikes the entire time ... evidenced by him throwing 82 pitches in eight innings.

“Just a tremendous pitching performance and it goes without saying that we made the most of the two hits that we got.”

This kind of thing is getting to be a habit for the light-hitting Dodgers. On Wednesday they got maximum mileage from four hits in a 4-3 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers. Two of the hits were two-run homers, by Jordan and Alex Cora.

Both of their hits Saturday came in the fourth inning and allowed the second-place Dodgers (32-23) to creep within two games of the World Series champion Diamondbacks (34-21), with the three-game series’ rubber match today.

Cesar Izturis led off the fourth with a flare single into right-center field and, with two out, Jordan crushed a 1-and-0 Brian Anderson fastball over the fence in left-center for his 10th homer of the season.

“I’ve had some success against Anderson,” said Jordan, who is batting .436 with four doubles, a triple, four homers and 13 runs batted in in his last 11 games. “He just made a couple of mistakes.”

The left-handed Anderson (0-5) struck out four, did not walk a batter and retired the side in order in six of his seven innings. But his winless streak as a starter extended to 16 games dating to July 22.

Ashby (5-4), meanwhile, struck out two batters and walked one.

“The main thing I’m trying to focus on is not think about scoring, not think about the other guy,” said Ashby, who won his first two starts as a Dodger last season before the injury to his right (throwing) elbow finished his season. An MRI exam June 11 showed a tear in the flexor muscle and he underwent surgery June 15.

“I just have to do what I have to do, get three outs and take them one pitch at a time,” he said. “We got ground balls, kept it on the ground and mixed it up.”

Ashby stayed ahead of the Diamondbacks with his sinker, though he ran into danger in the sixth inning, when Tony Womack’s single, a sacrifice by Anderson and Craig Counsell’s single put runners at first and third with one out.

David Dellucci hit a ground ball to third baseman Adrian Beltre, who looked Womack back to third before throwing out Dellucci, with Counsell, who was running on the pitch, taking second.

Ashby walked the dangerous Luis Gonzalez, loading the bases, then got cleanup hitter Erubiel Durazo to ground out meekly to first to end the inning.

“When Andy Ashby takes the mound you know two things,” Tracy said. “He’s going to give you everything he’s got every time he goes out there and he’s never going to give in to adversity.”

Showing few effects of last season’s surgery, Ashby is 3-0 with a 1.31 earned-run average in his last three starts.

Still, he wouldn’t have minded had Tracy left him on the mound for the ninth inning in an attempt to get his first complete game since July 2000.

“You want to finish what you start but the bottom line is we won,” Ashby said. “That’s what [Gagne is] down there for. He’s been doing it all season.”

In converting his ninth consecutive save opportunity, 10 of Gagne’s 11 pitches were strikes.