Dodgers get a youthful victory

PHOENIX -- For a day, Juan Pierre played the role of the old man.

The 30-year old center fielder was the lone veteran in a Dodgers’ lineup filled almost entirely with early 20-somethings Sunday, the closest to him in age being 25-year old Andre Ethier.

“I had to make fun of him for that, of course,” first baseman James Loney said.

With Loney and Tony Abreu belting home runs, the experience-deficient team fielded by Manager Grady Little cruised to a 7-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field to halt the Dodgers’ season-long seven-game skid and pushed back the day of their official elimination from the playoffs.

The victory came at the end of a week in which Loney and Matt Kemp publicly responded to criticism of the team’s young players by Jeff Kent.

The magic number to seal the Dodgers’ fate remained at two, as wild-card-leading San Diego lost to Colorado. The earliest the Dodgers can be eliminated is Tuesday, when they play host to the Rockies in the first game of a six-game homestand that will culminate their season.

Little claimed the Dodgers’ youthful look wasn’t an indication that they were starting to play for next season, but rather a strategic move. Exactly a week earlier, Diamondbacks starter Edgar Gonzalez held the Dodgers to one run in five innings in Los Angeles.

Sunday, Gonzalez lasted only 3 1/3 .

Loney was three for five with a pair of runs and Pierre was four for four with a walk.

“They played well, man,” Pierre said of a lineup that included September call-ups Tony Abreu, Andy LaRoche and Chin-lung Hu. “We had good at-bats throughout the lineup.”

And Dodgers starter Chad Billingsley made some quality pitches.

Billingsley (12-5), who improved to 5-1 over his last seven starts, said he has grown increasingly comfortable on the mound as his second season in the big leagues has progressed. He spoke with satisfaction about how he was “pitching” more and “throwing” less, mixing his 88-91 miles-per-hour cutter with his 93-94-mph fastball.

“I could throw 94, 95, but there’s a chance it would end up in the middle of the plate,” he said.

Billingsley gave up a run in the first, but put up zeros with ease over the next four innings. He pitched his way into a jam in the sixth inning, when he walked Mark Reynolds to load the bases with one out.

Billingsley struck out Chris Snyder and was replaced by Joe Beimel, who induced an inning-ending groundout by Stephen Drew.

Catcher Russell Martin said of Billingsley: “His breaking ball was sharp and that helped a lot. He got a lot of strikeouts with his curveball.”

That Billingsley saw faces from his past behind him was a bonus.

“All of us made our way up the minor leagues together,” he said.

Referring to the Dodgers’ double-A affiliate, he said, “It was almost like Jacksonville.”

Every starter other than Billingsley got at least one hit.

“The guys were definitely pumped up to be in there,” Loney said.

The Dodgers got a solo home run from Abreu in the first and added two runs in the fourth, giving them a 3-1 lead at that point. Loney extended the margin to 5-1 on a two-run home run to right in the fifth.

The Dodgers scored two more runs in the eighth, the second resulting on a throwing error by shortstop Drew.

Abreu had to leave the game in the sixth with a strained right hip and is listed as day to day.

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dylan.hernandez@latimes.com