Alvarez Shows He Has a Lot Left

There were times last year when Wilson Alvarez feared he had nothing remaining in his strong left arm.

“I was basically done,” he said. “November, December, I was done. But there was something inside me that said, ‘You can’t quit like this. You have to do something good before you’re done.’ ”

His latest good deed was his best as a Dodger, and it came at a time they needed it most.

Alvarez pitched his first complete-game shutout in more than six years Friday, giving up four hits and striking out seven in a 6-0 victory over the San Diego Padres before 51,013 at Dodger Stadium.

Alvarez (5-1) was signed by the Dodgers to a minor league contract in January and began the season with triple-A Las Vegas, but his 119-pitch victory Friday was a prime major league effort.

The Dodgers remained 3 1/2 games behind Florida in the scramble for the National League wild-card berth and moved within two games of Philadelphia.

“Wilson was tremendous, like he’s been the last couple of months,” said Shawn Green, whose first-inning home run off Kevin Jarvis (4-8) was the 250th of his career and his league-leading 13th run batted in during September. “He led us to the win.”

Adrian Beltre did his part too. He hit a leadoff home run in the second into the left-field seats and blasted another home run to right in the ninth, his second multi-home run game this season and fourth of his career. He has a 10-game hitting streak, a season high.

Altogether, it was an outstanding start to the Dodgers’ final home stand of the season. “We need to win all nine, or eight of them,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “That’s a lot of games, but we put ourselves into the position where we need to win.”

Alvarez, 33, helped by improving his record in his last seven starts, since Aug. 9, to 4-0 with a 1.18 earned-run average. Overall, with the Dodgers, his ERA is 2.16.

“We faced Wilson Alvarez last June in an interleague game in Tampa Bay,” Manager Jim Tracy said, “and he probably had six or seven miles per hour less on his fastball and very little effectiveness with his pitches last June. Obviously, he’s done some serious rehab work to where he could throw 89 to both sides of the plate and throw his curveball and changeup.

“He had them off balance.”

Alvarez previously pitched a complete game on June 25, 1999, with Tampa Bay against Toronto. His last complete-game shutout was June 18, 1997, against the Chicago Cubs, while a member of the White Sox.

“This year my arm doesn’t hurt,” Alvarez said. “My arm doesn’t hurt anymore and I’m throwing strikes.”

Tracy said before the game the Dodgers had to “think along the lines of winning all three of these series [on the home stand],” and Green launched them to a good start by homering on a 3-and-1 pitch, a shot estimated at 429 feet.

Beltre’s blast into the left-field seats was estimated at 451 feet.

The Dodgers added three runs in the fifth, with Alvarez helping his own cause with what Tracy called a slug bunt. “It put us in position to create a lot of breathing room for ourselves,” Tracy said.

Cesar Izturis led off the inning with a single and went to third when Alvarez singled. Izturis scored on Dave Roberts’ double to left-center, with Alvarez stopping at third.

They both held when Lo Duca grounded back to Jarvis. Manager Bruce Bochy ordered Green walked intentionally to load the bases and brought in left-hander Mike Bynum to face Fred McGriff, who lined to first.

The Padres couldn’t get out of the inning, though. Beltre hit a grounder to short that was misplayed by Khalil Greene, allowing Alvarez to score. Roberts took advantage when Greene dawdled in chasing the ball into shallow center, dashing home and scoring on Greene’s weak throw.

Beltre capped the scoring in the eighth with his second homer of the game.

“I like the way we started,” Tracy said, “but we’ve got eight more to go. We’ll take it one day at a time.”