Stults keeps things going

It’s no secret the Dodgers have been looking for pitching.

They’ve talked about Jose Contreras. They’ve talked to David Wells.

But Friday they stopping talking for a few hours and handed the ball to rookie Eric Stults instead. And that proved so successful the Dodgers might consider those other talks to be over.

Recalled from the minors less than 24 hours earlier to take Mark Hendrickson’s spot in the rotation, Stults was three batters short of perfect through seven innings, pitching the Dodgers to a 6-4 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

“He was outstanding,” Dodgers Manager Grady Little said. “That was one of the best-pitched games we’ve had all year. It was impressive.”

Especially considering Stults was making only his fourth big league start. But the left-hander showed great command of a changeup and a fastball that topped out at 92 mph, giving up only two third-inning runs on a walk and two singles. But he didn’t allow another runner to reach base, striking out nine and retiring the final 13 Rockies he faced in order.

No other Dodger has pitched as many as seven innings and given up fewer hits this season.

“It’s always fun when you’re pitching well,” catcher Russell Martin said. “Especially when you’re dominating like he did tonight. It’s a good confidence-booster.”

For Stults and the Dodgers. That’s because the pitcher’s promotion not only came at a time when the club is searching for pitchers but also just as the Dodgers opened a string of six games against teams who began the weekend ahead of them in the National League wild-card race.

“Any time you get an opportunity like this you want to make the best of it,” Stults said. “I just wanted to give them a good effort.”

The Rockies, by the way, are no longer one of the teams the Dodgers are chasing, because Friday’s win pushed Los Angeles past them into third place in the NL West and into fourth in the wild-card standings.

To continue that climb, however, the Dodgers will need bats as well as arms and their offense has shown signs that it too has an interest in the playoff chase. After batting .229 and averaging a paltry 2.3 runs through the first two weeks of August, the Dodgers have hit .299 and scored 18 runs in their last three games, all victories.

And for the second night in a row it was Jeff Kent who got things started, hammering Josh Fogg’s first pitch of the second inning over the wall in center field.

That shouldn’t have been unexpected, because Kent entered the game with five homers in 27 career at-bats against Fogg. What might have been surprising, though, is that the homer tied Kent with Joe DiMaggio on the all-time list with 361.

“When you play this game for a while you understand there are peaks and valleys,” said first baseman Mark Sweeney, who went one for four in his first start as a Dodger.

“You try to eliminate the valleys. That big inning helped. We’re still doing the same thing every day. Hopefully we can stay on a roll.”

They certainly did that after Kent’s blast Friday, sending eight more men to the plate in the inning and scoring four more runs on Andre Ethier’s sacrifice fly, Shea Hillenbrand’s RBI single and a two-run single by Juan Pierre, who is hitting .524 five games into the homestand.

Pierre later had a triple -- giving him five multi-hit games in his last six starts -- scored a run and stole his 50th base of the season, making him the fastest Dodger to 50 steals since Davey Lopes in 1975.

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kevin.baxter@latimes.com