Latest Win Is a Real Lowlight

The way Dodger right-hander Kevin Brown was pitching Sunday, the question in Miller Park was not only whether the Milwaukee Brewers would get a hit, but whether they would hit a ball out of the infield.

Featuring a heavy sinker and a nasty split-fingered fastball, Brown limited Milwaukee to four singles -- only two of which reached the outfield -- in eight innings, and Fred McGriff and Paul Lo Duca homered to lead the Dodgers to their 10th straight victory, a 5-1 pasting of the Brewers before a crowd of 22,354.

The Dodgers won for the 21st time in 28 games, moved to within half a game of first-place San Francisco in the National League West and, after their 9-13 start, improved to 30-20, their best 50-game start since going 35-15 in 1983.

The driving force behind the hot streak has been a Dodger rotation that has combined for a 10-0 record and 1.63 earned-run average in the 10 games and has provided 38 quality starts this season.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Lo Duca said of a rotation that has a 24-12 record and 2.98 ERA and has combined with baseball’s leading bullpen to give the Dodgers a major league-low 2.68 team ERA. “Hopefully, they can keep it going. They’re that good, and people are starting to realize that.”

Brown (6-1) lost a no-hit bid in the fifth inning when John Vander Wal -- who on Saturday broke up Hideo Nomo’s no-hitter in the seventh inning -- singled to left center with one out, but through seven innings he faced the minimum 21 batters. Brown, who is 5-0 with a 1.44 ERA in his last seven starts, struck out eight and walked one, and the Brewers hit only three balls to the outfield against him.

“It was not a nice day to be a Milwaukee Brewer,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “With the kind of movement he had, the depth of his pitches, the inability to detect between his sinker and splitter ... it’s no fun trying to hit against that.”

It was no fun being a Brewer all weekend. Nomo threw a two-hit shutout Saturday, and when Geoff Jenkins hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth Sunday, it snapped a 24-inning scoreless streak against the Dodgers.

“You have to tell yourself you’re not in a slump, that you’re actually hot and you don’t even know it,” Milwaukee first baseman Richie Sexson said.

This won’t console the Brewers: Brown said he has had better stuff this season than he had Sunday. But he may not have had better movement, as evidenced by the 12 ground-ball outs he induced.

“His sinker was breaking like a foot -- he was awesome,” Jenkins said. “When he’s on, you have to beat him, 2-1 or 3-2.”

Brewer right-hander Ben Sheets matched Brown for five scoreless innings but ran into trouble in the sixth when Jolbert Cabrera, starting in place of center fielder Brian Jordan, legged out a pop-fly double to center.

Shawn Green popped to first for the second out, but Sheets grooved a 2-and-0 fastball to McGriff, who smacked it over the wall in right for his eighth homer of the season, fifth in his last 13 games and 486th of his career. McGriff -- whose grand slam broke a scoreless tie in the fifth inning of Saturday’s game -- moved into 37th place on baseball’s all-time RBI list with 1,531, six shy of Joe DiMaggio.

The Dodgers tacked on three more runs in the eighth when Cabrera was hit by a pitch, Eric Young booted McGriff’s potential double-play grounder for an error and Lo Duca hit a towering fly ball that cleared the wall in center for his third homer of the year.

After hitting .233 with five homers and 26 RBIs after the All-Star break last season, Lo Duca raised his 2003 average to .319 Sunday and is hitting .500 (16 for 32) with five RBIs in his last nine games.

“The feeling I have now is a lot closer to what I had in 2001,” Lo Duca said of his breakout season, when he hit .320 with 25 homers and 90 RBIs. “That’s because I’ve been going [to the opposite field] and the hits are falling in.”

The Dodgers still rank last in the NL in runs, but their stingy pitching staff has allowed only 145 runs, the fewest in baseball.

“This is a nice roll to be on,” Brown said.

“Hopefully we can hold onto it as long as we can.”

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Pitching In

*--* Comparing Dodger pitching during their 10-game winning streak to their 20-20 start. Dodger starters are 10-0 and the bullpen has seven saves during the streak: DURING 10-0 STREAK IP H ER BB SO ERA Starters 72 44 13 29 75 1.63 Bullpen 18 5 0 2 24 0.00 Overall 90 49 13 31 99 1.30 Per 9 Inn 4.9 3.1 9.9 DURING 20-20 START IP H ER BB SO ERA Starters 254 2/3 219 95 103 214 3.36 Bullpen 108 2/3 83 27 30 106 2.24 Overall 363 1/3 302 122 133 320 3.02 Per 9 Inn 7.5 3.3 7.9

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