Things Are Looking Up

This was a sight far more disturbing to Dodger fans than Barry Bonds coming to the plate with the bases loaded and no outs in the ninth inning of a tie game.

It was Manager Jim Tracy and trainer Matt Wilson coming to the mound in the seventh inning Tuesday night and Dodger ace Kevin Brown, in the midst of another dominating performance, being escorted off the field.

But an inning later came the kind of relief that not even Dodger closer Eric Gagne can provide: Brown had merely strained his left groin, and the damper was lifted off an impressive 4-1 victory over San Francisco that extended the Dodger win streak to seven and moved them to within one game of the Giants in the National League West.

A Dodger Stadium crowd of 48,007 saw catcher Paul Lo Duca extend his hitting streak to 24 games with a four-hit performance that included a first-inning home run, and Gagne struck out the side --Benito Santiago on a 68-mph curve, Edgardo Alfonzo on a 95-mph fastball and Jose Cruz Jr. on an 85-mph changeup -- in the ninth for his major league-leading 27th save.

Brown was listed as day to day, and there’s a slim chance the right-hander could miss his next start, but there was no damage to Brown’s right elbow, which was surgically repaired after the 2001 season, or to his lower back, which was operated on during the 2002 season, and that was great news for the Dodgers.

“Right now, I feel good about him making his next start Sunday against the Angels,” Tracy said. “It’s a mild strain, nothing real serious, but we didn’t want to risk him pulling it on his next pitch. I think he tweaked it running to first on his last at-bat [to end the sixth inning].”

Brown (10-1) blanked the Giants on six hits over six innings, getting Bonds to bounce into a 4-6-3 double play with two on in a key at-bat to end the third, before Alfonzo opened the seventh with a double to right-center.

Brown told Tracy before the seventh to warm up a reliever because his groin was a little tight, and when Tracy saw Brown “make an expression and say something to himself” after the pitch to Alfonzo, he “knew something wasn’t right.”

After a brief discussion on the mound, Tracy, not wanting to risk further injury to a pitcher who is 9-0 with a 1.27 earned-run average in his last 10 starts and is the heavy favorite to start in the All-Star game, pulled Brown in favor of Paul Shuey.

“It locked up on me,” said Brown, who was limping in the locker room after the game. “I’m not that familiar with this kind of thing. I wanted to go out and see how it felt. It didn’t hurt that bad when I tried to throw. It hurt me more coming off the mound.”

Does Brown think he can make his next start?

“Do you want me to flip a coin?” Brown said. “I don’t have anything I can tell you about it. I’m hopeful, but you have as much chance of guessing right as I do.”

Lo Duca wasted no time extending his streak. He belted a 2-and-2 Jesse Foppert fastball over the wall in left field in the first inning for his fifth home run of the season and a 1-0 Dodger lead.

But Lo Duca was far from done.

After Daryle Ward singled to open the second and scored on Brown’s two-out single to center, Lo Duca led off the third with a double to left. Lo Duca scored on Brian Jordan’s sacrifice fly to make it 3-0, and Adrian Beltre’s two-out RBI single made it 4-0.

Lo Duca’s bid for the cycle fell short, but he singled to right-center in the seventh for his second four-hit game of the season. During the streak, Lo Duca is batting .433 (42 for 97) with four home runs, 12 runs batted in and 14 multi-hit games. He was batting .275 on May 17, the day the streak started. He is now batting .339.

“He’s been our most consistent offensive player from day one of the season,” Tracy said. “This is similar to 2001 [when Lo Duca hit .320 with 25 homers and 90 runs batted in]. If you can get beyond the home runs ... I don’t expect 25 home runs from him, I expect a solid two-hole hitter who uses the whole field, from foul line to foul line. That’s when he’s at his best.”

The Dodgers also backed Shuey with two superb defensive plays, Ward making a diving stop of Pedro Feliz’s grounder to end the seventh and Dave Roberts diving into the gap in right-center to rob Bonds of a double.

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Giant Edge

Over the last seven seasons, the Dodgers own a slight edge in head-to-head competition with their rivals from the north. However, over that same span the Giants have been the far more successful franchise on the national stage.

*--* DODGERS 1997-2003 GIANTS 553-487 Reg. season record 589-452 0 Playoff appearances 3 0 W.S. appearances 1 0 Won division 2 48 Head-to-head wins 46 467 Head-to-head runs 408

*--*

NL West

*--* Teams W-L GB Streak San Francisco 42-27 -- L-2 Dodgers 41-28 1 W-7 Colorado 35-36 8 L-1 Arizona 33-36 9 L-1 San Diego 22-49 21 W-2 San Diego at Colorado, delayed by rain

*--*