Werth Leads Hit Parade for Dodgers

On a night the Dodgers trotted out their freshly minted first-round draft picks before a receptive Dodger Stadium crowd, it was a former first-round pick of the Baltimore Orioles who generated the biggest cheers.

Jayson Werth smacked a three-run homer and scored two runs to lead the Dodgers to a 6-3 interleague victory Wednesday over his former team, which has lost 17 of its last 24 games to move within one game of last place in the American League East.

Odalis Perez pitched seven high-quality innings, allowing one run to lower his earned-run average to 1.98 over his last six starts, and the Dodgers amassed 10 hits against an Oriole pitching staff that has allowed an average of seven runs over its last 22 games.

Baltimore committed three errors in an inning without giving up a run but couldn’t manage much off Perez (4-3) except Javy Lopez’s seventh-inning solo homer, continuing a season-long trend of struggling against left-handers. The Orioles were hitting an American League-low .237 against left-handers entering the game.

The Dodgers, who remained 1 1/2 games ahead of the second-place San Francisco Giants, with San Diego falling into third place in the National League West, scored a run in the third on Shawn Green’s infield single and tagged Baltimore starter Matt Riley for four more runs in the fourth to take control.

Adrian Beltre and Juan Encarnacion led off the inning with consecutive singles and moved to second and third on Perez’s sacrifice bunt. Cesar Izturis drove in Beltre with a slow roller to third baseman Melvin Mora that went for a single, and Encarnacion and Izturis scored on Werth’s homer into the Dodger bullpen in left field.

“They pretty much just gave me up,” said Werth, a first-round selection for the Orioles in 1997 who was traded to Toronto before the 2001 season and acquired by the Dodgers in March. “It’s just good to show them what I’m capable of.”

The Dodgers squandered an opportunity in the second after Riley committed a fielding error and throwing error on the same play, allowing Green to take second with nobody out. Green moved to third when Paul Lo Duca reached on a grounder that got past shortstop Miguel Tejada for another error. But Beltre popped out to first baseman Rafael Palmeiro, and Encarnacion and Jose Hernandez struck out to end the inning.

Werth scored the Dodgers’ first run, in the third, after reaching base thanks to more defensive foibles. Werth popped up to shallow center field, but the ball fell between Tejada and center fielder Luis Matos. Izturis, who had reached on a one-out single, was thrown out at second after retreating too far toward first on the play.

But Milton Bradley and Green put together consecutive singles to score Werth.

Hernandez added a broken-bat bloop single in the fifth to drive in Beltre, making it 6-0, before Lopez homered in the seventh.

“I’m just very satisfied with what I’ve done over the first half of the season,” said Perez, who has allowed three earned runs or fewer in 12 of 14 starts. “I know I have a big responsibility on this ballclub. If I can go out there every five days and do my job, that’s what I want to do.”

The Orioles scored two runs off relievers Duaner Sanchez and Tom Martin in the eighth before Eric Gagne struck out Javy Lopez on three pitches to end the inning. Gagne also pitched a scoreless ninth to record his 78th consecutive save and 15th of the season, enlivening the crowd of 35,070.

Gagne also hit for the first time since May 7, 2002, and the second time since assuming the closer’s role that season, striking out on four pitches in the eighth.

“I like him a lot better as a pitcher,” said Dodger Manager Jim Tracy, who insisted he did not make a mistake by failing to make a double-switch when Gagne entered the game so the pitcher would not have to hit.