Dodgers Look Penny Wise

This was the Brad Penny that Paul DePodesta went through so much trouble to acquire, the guy who had beaten the New York Yankees twice in the World Series and convinced Dodger management to risk clubhouse upheaval and fan revolt during last season’s trading deadline.

Why fret about losing Paul Lo Duca and Guillermo Mota, as valuable as they were, when you could have a pitcher of Penny’s caliber anchoring your rotation for years to come?

Penny had given his new team plenty of reasons to worry after dazzling in his Dodger debut, of course, leaving his final two starts of 2004 prematurely because of a nerve injury in his biceps that clouded his future.

But the prognosis brightened considerably Saturday night at Dodger Stadium when Penny pitched six shutout innings during the Dodgers’ 6-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

Pitching on a relatively cozy evening in which the game-time temperature of 62 degrees was a 16-degree improvement over the chilly environs of Coors Field, where he had made a solid but unspectacular season debut, Penny limited the Rockies to four hits and one walk.

“I’m relieved to be back out there and part of the team,” said Penny, who struck out four and lowered his earned-run average from 7.20 to 3.27.

The sellout crowd of 54,123 didn’t get a chance to shower Penny (1-0) with affection only because it didn’t realize the right-hander was finished after throwing his 95th and final pitch to retire Preston Wilson for the last out of the sixth inning.

After being held hitless for four innings, Penny’s teammates came alive in the fifth when Jason Repko followed Cesar Izturis’ two-run single with a three-run homer.

Colorado pressured Penny only in the fifth, when Garrett Atkins hit a bloop single with two out and J.D. Closser drew a full-count walk. Penny recovered by striking out pitcher Joe Kennedy looking at a 94-mph fastball to end the inning.

“The other day in Colorado he was good. Tonight he was very good,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said. “He just went after them. He was throwing 93 to 94 mph all night long.”

With practically every Dodger player leaving the clubhouse early to beat a crowd that lingered for a postgame fireworks display, catcher Jason Phillips graciously taped a sign to his locker with a quote proclaiming, “Penny threw great.”

Kennedy, who had given up only four runs in 23 innings in three career starts against the Dodgers, appeared en route to improving those numbers when he opened the game with four no-hit innings.

Perhaps Kennedy (1-3) should have taken it as a sign of things to come when Olmedo Saenz reached base leading off the fifth on third baseman Atkins’ fielding error. Phillips doubled down the left-field line to put two on with nobody out, Saenz reaching third with a headfirst slide.

After Norihiro Nakamura grounded to third, Kennedy hit Penny with a pitch on his right heel, prompting Penny to slam his bat to the ground in disgust.

“It hurt,” Penny said. “I couldn’t hit his curveball. I’m glad he hit me.”

That became a big play when Izturis stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and stroked a two-run single to left.

Repko made it 5-0 three pitches later when he connected for his fourth homer.

Colorado tried to cobble together a two-out rally in the sixth when Todd Helton singled up the middle and Wilson hit a grounder to deep short, but Izturis ranged far to his right and made a strong throw to first for the final out.

There was no debating whether Penny, who is still regaining his stamina, would go back out to pitch the seventh.

“We felt with a five-run lead, that that was enough,” Tracy said.

The Rockies, 1-9 away from Coors Field, broke up the Dodgers’ shutout bid in the seventh when Brad Hawpe homered off Duaner Sanchez. Colorado added a run in the ninth against D.J. Houlton before Yhency Brazoban earned his seventh save in eight opportunities by getting Closser to foul out on a nice play by left fielder Repko with two on and two out.