Bradley Stacks the Deck in Dodgers’ Favor

The kid who jumped in jubilation and accidentally scraped his knuckles on the ceiling while listening to Vin Scully’s call of Kirk Gibson’s home run in the 1988 World Series created his own stir at Dodger Stadium on Thursday afternoon.

With one swing of the bat, Milton Bradley did more than hit a two-run homer that lifted the Dodgers to a come-from-behind 4-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies; the center fielder also might have inspired another 10-year-old to believe in his ultimate dream.

“It’s just hard to describe,” Bradley, a Southern California native and lifelong Dodger fan, said after his first game-winning homer as a Dodger. “Now I get to go home and see my mom smile.”

There were smiles all around the Dodger clubhouse after Bradley’s eighth-inning blast into the loge level in right field gave the team its seventh comeback victory in eight games and kept the San Diego Padres 2 1/2 games back in the National League West heading into a weekend series between the teams at Dodger Stadium.

“A lot of people talk about his temper,” said closer Eric Gagne, who struck out the side in the ninth for his 28th save. “You know what? We couldn’t care less about his temper, because what he does on the field is just amazing.”

No deficit seems too big, no situation too precarious for these Dodgers, who fell behind in the eighth after left fielder Dave Roberts attempted to make a diving catch of a sinking liner off the bat of Aaron Miles only to watch it bounce past him for a triple.

“I might have been guilty of trying to do too much,” said Roberts, who was hitless in four at-bats. “I left a couple of guys on base early, so I wanted to make a defensive play.”

Royce Clayton followed with a fly ball to medium center. Bradley caught it and fired toward home plate as Miles tagged from third. Miles touched the plate with his left hand after sliding around catcher Paul Lo Duca, giving the Rockies a 2-1 lead and prompting Bradley to throw his cap in frustration.

“I wasn’t sure if it was deep enough, but I had to go,” Miles said. “I had to chance it, and I just got in there.”

Given the chance to get the run back in the bottom of the inning with Adrian Beltre on first and none out, Bradley did a curious thing: He squared to bunt on Colorado reliever Tim Harikkala’s first pitch. (Bradley later explained he had thought about sacrificing Beltre to second base to bring up Shawn Green.)

But after taking a ball, Bradley hit an inside fastball 412 feet down the right-field line just inside the foul pole, sending the crowd of 34,276 into a frenzy. Pinch-hitter Jason Grabowski hit a run-scoring double later in the inning to complete the scoring.

“Milton came up big,” Roberts said. “He picked me up huge today.”

That’s been the story of the second half for the Dodgers, who have relied on a different hero almost every day while winning 15 of their last 17 games.

Odalis Perez looked like he might carry the Dodgers to victory Thursday, giving up only Vinny Castilla’s solo homer through seven innings before reliever Guillermo Mota (8-3) yielded the Rockies’ go-ahead run in the eighth.

Perez, who has no-decisions in six games in which he has pitched at least seven innings and given up two earned runs or fewer, said the only record he’s keeping tabs on is the Dodgers’.

“It’s about winning,” said Perez, who is 4-3 and whose 2.81 earned-run average would be the lowest of his career if he could maintain it over the season’s final two months. “If I go out there six, seven, eight, nine innings and don’t get a decision and we win, then I’m fine with that.”

Bradley’s homer was his 11th, establishing a career high 94 games into a season the 26-year-old hopes will end as memorably as the one he followed in 1988.

“To be a championship-caliber club, you have to put teams away and you also have to be able to come from behind and thwart teams’ hopes,” Bradley said. “We’ve been able to do that.”