A Return to Form Pays Off for Dodgers

The Brewers donned 1955 replica Milwaukee Brave uniforms for Wednesday night’s game, but it was the Dodgers who turned back the clock--by a week or so--in a 1-0 victory before 25,954 in Miller Park.

Offensive juggernauts in their previous four games, when they scored 25 runs on 43 hits, including nine home runs, the Dodgers returned to those two old staples of 2002, pitching and defense, to eke out a victory over baseball’s worst team and wash away the sour taste of Tuesday night’s 8-6 loss to Milwaukee, when the Dodgers blew a five-run lead by giving up eight runs in the seventh inning.

Hideo Nomo threw six shutout innings, snapping a string of three shaky starts that may have jeopardized his rotation spot, and relievers Omar Daal, Paul Quantrill and Eric Gagne blanked the Brewers the final three innings. Gagne struck out two of three in the ninth for his 15th save, tying him for the major-league lead and completing the Dodgers’ National League-leading sixth shutout.

The league’s second-best defensive team also made two run-saving plays, right fielder Shawn Green throwing out Geoff Jenkins at the plate in the second inning and left fielder Brian Jordan making a diving catch of Eric Young’s third-inning flare and doubling Alex Sanchez off second base.

“That was awesome--great pitching and great defense win out every time,” Jordan said. “We had to bounce back today, because a loss like [Tuesday night’s] could have really turned things around for us if we let it. To win a 1-0 game showed that we didn’t let that loss affect us.”

The Dodgers scored in the third inning when Adrian Beltre swung at strike three in the dirt but reached on Milwaukee right-hander Ben Sheets’ wild pitch and Green, who homered twice Tuesday night, grounded a triple into the right-field corner.

Green also came up big in the bottom of the second, after Jenkins walked and Jose Hernandez doubled him to third. Paul Bako flied to shallow right, and with the pitcher coming up, Jenkins had little choice but to tag.

Green, who said he didn’t have a good grip on the ball, made a strong throw on the fly to the plate, but it was a few feet up the first-base line. Catcher Paul Lo Duca had enough time to retrieve the ball and make a diving tag of the sliding Jenkins to end the inning.

The Dodger defense did not rest. Sanchez walked and stole second with one out in the third, and Young hit a soft liner to shallow left. Jordan, who is playing with a sore left knee and missed five games last week because of a strained left abdominal muscle, sprinted in and made a diving catch, scrambled to his knees and threw to second in time to double off Sanchez.

“My first thought, when the ball went up, was to get to it any way you can,” Jordan said. “Then I saw [Sanchez] running and thought, ‘Man, I can make the double play.’ Then I thought, ‘Don’t land on your [left] knee.’ That was the first thing that hit the ground, and man is it sore. But it was worth it. It saved the game.”

Nomo’s performance may not have saved his rotation spot--Manager Jim Tracy said he never considered moving the Japanese right-hander to the bullpen--but it certainly solidified it.

Nomo walked 14 in his previous three starts, giving up 13 earned runs in 151/3 innings, and there was speculation that Daal could replace him in the rotation. But Nomo allowed only four hits in six innings, struck out seven and walked three during an 88-pitch performance in which he showed better command of his fastball.

“After the first inning, I told [pitching Coach Jim] Colborn that his fastball was a lot more lively,” said Lo Duca, who threw out Sanchez trying to steal second base in the eighth inning, the 20th time in eight games the Brewers had a runner thrown out on the basepaths. “When you throw a little harder, they have to gear up for the fastball, and that made his [off-speed] split-fingered pitch even tougher. He had good stuff.”

Not that Tracy doubted him.

“To step up and throw six scoreless innings was a huge boost for him at a time when it was being insinuated he might move to the bullpen,” Tracy said. “When that was suggested, I said I don’t give up on my players.

“When you know the character of the individuals you’re dealing with, they don’t like to be bad for a long period of time; they’re going to do something about it.”