Dodgers, Matt Kemp enjoy a late launch
Reporting from San Diego -- In their first meetings of the season, the Dodgers play the division-leading San Diego Padres five times in seven days.
And if the first game Friday night was any indication, it’s going to be a taut, grueling matchup throughout all five games.
After the teams kept swapping the lead, Matt Kemp slugged a two-run home run over the center-field wall in the seventh inning to lead the Dodgers to a 4-3 win over the Padres at Petco Park.
It was the Dodgers’ fifth consecutive victory and seventh in eight games, and it lifted the reigning National League West champions above the .500 mark for the first time this season, at 18-17.
Perhaps significantly for the Dodgers, they won a game started by 36-year-old right-hander Ramon Ortiz, who gave up three earned runs in four-plus innings in his first major league start in three years and kept the Dodgers in the game until Kemp could deliver his game-winning hit.
“Man, I haven’t hit a ball that hard in a little while, so it felt pretty good to square one up,” Kemp said, adding that he’s been working with hitting coach Don Mattingly to improve his at-bats. “Things are starting to come back around.”
Manager Joe Torre tapped Ortiz to give fellow starters Clayton Kershaw and Chad Billingsley an extra day of rest before they face the Padres on Saturday and Sunday. Ortiz, a surprise addition to the club this year after a strong spring training, had made 14 relief appearances before Friday.
“I’m very happy the way we pitched tonight,” Ortiz said. “I don’t think it was my best game, but the positive thing is the team won the game, that’s very important. I threw everything tonight, I threw changeups, sliders, all the pitches.”
Torre said Ortiz “gave us what we needed, just keep us in the game,” while also praising the bullpen, including game winner Jeff Weaver (2-1), Hong-Chih Kuo and closer Jonathan Broxton, for blanking the Padres over the last four innings. Broxton earned his fifth save with a 1-2-3 ninth.
Kemp slugged his home run — his eighth of the season — against Padres reliever Luke Gregerson after Russell Martin had doubled, and after San Diego starter and former Dodger Jon Garland had held the Dodgers to two runs in six innings.
San Diego has been all about pitching so far, entering the game with the lowest team earned-run average, 2.61, in the league. But the Dodgers arrived in San Diego with the NL’s top batting average, .277.
So perhaps it was no surprise that the teams kept exchanging the lead.
Adrian Gonzalez got the Padres started with a first-inning homer, and the Dodgers tied it the third inning, although they wasted an opportunity to chase Garland early.
Consecutive singles by Martin, Kemp, Andre Ethier and Manny Ramirez produced one run and left the bases still loaded with none out. But James Loney popped out to third base and Casey Blake grounded into a double play.
An inning earlier, the Dodgers had squandered a one-out, bases-loaded chance when Ortiz, attempting to squeeze, bunted into a double play. San Diego took a 2-1 lead in the third inning when David Eckstein doubled down the right-field line and scored on Will Venable’s single. The Dodgers tied it again in the fifth when Kemp walked and then scored on Ethier’s double.
In bottom of the fifth, Tony Gwynn Jr. walked and took third base on Eckstein’s single. After Ortiz was replaced by reliever George Sherrill, Chase Headley grounded into a force play to score Gwynn, giving the Padres a 3-2 lead.
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