Dodgers Have General Glee

And then there are the nights when the Dodgers play exactly as their general manager envisioned. Monday was one of those nights, a victory in June as drawn up in January.

Paul DePodesta did not draw wide acclaim for his extreme makeover of the Dodgers, but Monday’s 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers was one for his scoreboard.

The Dodgers won with patience and power, with home runs from Jeff Kent and Jason Repko. They won with Derek Lowe, with a sometimes leaky infield behind him. They won with Eric Gagne, picking up the baton from Lowe in the Dodgers’ first starter-to-closer handoff this season. And they won their third consecutive game, their longest winning streak in five weeks.

“We need to play games like this,” Kent said, “if we’re going to play consistent baseball.”

Lowe and Gagne combined on a five-hitter, with Lowe retiring 12 in a row at one point and recording 16 of 24 outs via the ground ball. Lowe improved to 7-1 with a 1.82 earned-run average against his hometown Tigers, on a night his pregame included watching the first half of the NBA playoff game involving his hometown Pistons.

The Pistons beat the Miami Heat, and the result drew cheers from the crowd at Dodger Stadium, although Lowe didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“I didn’t know if they were Shaq fans or anti-Shaq fans,” he said.

The Dodgers and Lowe were supposed to be a poor match, with DePodesta signing a sinkerball pitcher after he had weakened the infield defense. Kent and third baseman Antonio Perez each made an error that contributed to an unearned run Monday, and the Dodgers have the most errors among National League West teams.

“I have as much confidence in this defense as I’ve had on any team,” Lowe said. “You just go out there and pitch your game.... There are going to be miscues along the way. That’s perfectly OK.”

The Tiger offense -- and the Dodger defense -- had staked Detroit ace Jeremy Bonderman to a 3-0 lead. But Repko led off the fourth inning with a home run, his fifth of the season. J.D. Drew tripled on the next pitch, Kent singled him home, and the Tiger lead had been cut to one run.

The sixth inning was Moneyball 101. Bonderman hadn’t walked anyone in the first five innings, but he started the sixth by walking Repko. Then he walked Drew on four pitches. And then Kent hit a home run, his 12th.

Kent drove in four runs and is on pace to drive in 136 this season. He has nine hits in his last 10 at-bats. He also atoned for his error with a spectacular play later in the game, although he faulted himself for the first error.

He overthrew first base as Nook Logan beat out an infield single, with Logan ending up on third and Kent saying he would have held the ball had he known Logan might be the fastest man in baseball.

Kent noted the small crowd -- 33,518 -- and suggested interleague play might have run its course. He said many players “don’t care” and resisted the idea of saving such popular matchups as Dodgers-Angels.

“Why not just draw the line,” he said, “and get rid of it all?”