Heat in Desert Wilts Dodgers

The ball shot off Shawn Green’s bat like a cannon Friday night, screaming toward right field and bouncing off the top of the fence for a first-inning home run, giving the Dodgers a lead and their right fielder his major league record-tying fifth homer in two games.

That was pretty much it for Dodger highlights.

Arizona pitcher Curt Schilling tamed the Green Monster--kind of--and shut down the rest of the Dodgers, throwing seven crisp innings to lead the Diamondbacks to a 14-3 pasting of the Dodgers before 42,862 in Bank One Ballpark.

Schilling, who leads the National League in wins (nine) and strikeouts (114), and is averaging less than one walk per nine innings, gave up one run on six hits, struck out seven and walked none, improving to 8-0 against the Dodgers dating to 1997.

The right-hander gave up a homer and a sixth-inning single to Green, who became the 14th player to hit four homers in a game Thursday in Milwaukee and the 25th player to hit five homers in two consecutive games with his shot Friday.

But Schilling (9-1) struck out Green with a nasty split-fingered fastball with a runner on second base in the third inning, when the score was still close, and he subdued a Dodger offense that had busted out for 33 runs on 52 hits, including 15 homers, in the previous four games.

Green singled off reliever Mike Morgan in the eighth for his 25th total base in two games, tying a major league record held by Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers (May 5-6, 1925) and Joe Adcock of the Milwaukee Braves (July 30-31, 1954).

But by then, the game was out of hand--the Diamondbacks having shredded Dodger starter Odalis Perez for five runs on seven hits in four innings and added a touchdown off reliever Jeff Williams in the seventh, sending 12 to the plate during the six-hit inning. Williams was optioned to triple-A Las Vegas after the game and will be replaced by knuckleballer Dennis Springer tonight.

Perez, who is 0-3 with a 7.00 earned-run average in five career games against Arizona, had his string of eight consecutive quality starts ended during his shortest outing of the season, and he has looked far more vulnerable in his last two starts than he did in his first eight.

“That was his worst start of the season from a command standpoint,” Manager Jim Tracy said. “He was deep in counts, and his pitch count (81) was up. We’ve seen him reach the seventh or eighth innings with the same amount of pitches. When you match up against Curt Schilling, you have to have your A game, and he didn’t.”

Perez (4-3) said he felt fine warming up, but when the game started, “none of my pitches worked,” he said. “I went to 3-2 counts on most of the hitters. I wasn’t able to throw any of my pitches for strikes.”

Junior Spivey had three hits, including a first-inning home run, and three runs batted in, shortstop Tony Womack had two hits and three RBIs, and catcher Damian Miller had two doubles to pace Arizona’s 15-hit attack.

The Dodgers got a scare in the third when first baseman Eric Karros leaned over the rail in foul territory to catch Jose Guillen’s popup before tumbling into a camera well. Karros, whose 2001 season was ruined by back problems, got up gingerly but remained in the game, and Tracy said afterward that he was fine.

Dodger catcher Paul Lo Duca hoped to send a message to the Diamondbacks in this series, that the Dodgers are a team to be reckoned with.

“To me, the Diamondbacks and Giants feel the [division race] is between them, and we’re not in the picture,” Lo Duca said Thursday. “

It was all Arizona on Friday night, and looming large this weekend is 6-foot-10 Diamondback left-hander Randy Johnson, who will start against the Dodgers on Sunday.

“If you watch ‘SportsCenter’, we’re the defending world champions, so they’re going to show a ton of us, and the Giants have Barry Bonds, so they’re going to show a ton of them, so maybe the Dodgers don’t get the same play,” Arizona pitcher Brian Anderson said.

“But we’re not going to discount them. They have some great players and a tremendous pitching staff. They can outslug you or beat you, 2-1.”