11th Win Easier for Ishii

Never mind the fretting over the mysteries of Kazuhisa Ishii’s ups and downs.

For one night at least, the Dodger left-hander kept Manager Jim Tracy easy in his seat.

Blessed with a five-run lead after the first inning Wednesday, Ishii followed up his ugly last start with 6 2/3 smooth innings in a 5-2 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in front of 31,429 at Dodger Stadium.

After 14 major league starts, Ishii’s record is a stunning 11-2.

They didn’t all come easily, not with him pitching in and out of jams all the time.

This one did.

“I think things went a little smoother,” Ishii said through an interpreter.

On a night when his wife, Ayako Kisa, and their 6-month-old child Kanta attended their first Dodger game, Ishii gave up two runs and four hits while striking out nine and walking four. (The nine strikeouts were his most since he struck out 10 in his Dodger debut.)

And while Shawn Green chalked up another home run--his 21st--along with three more RBIs--giving him 56--Green drove in only one more run than Ishii, who collected his first two major league RBIs with a bases-loaded single to left in the first inning.

“Are you a good hitter?” someone asked.

Ishii needed no interpreter.

“So-so,” he said.

The game ended with Eric Gagne picking up his major league-leading 24th save by retiring the side in order in the ninth, and the Dodgers closed to one game behind Arizona in the National League West.

It was a game that quickly swung the Dodgers’ way.

Toronto starter Justin Miller--a rookie from Torrance who played in the 1992 Little League World series before going on to Torrance High and L.A. Harbor College--had a crowd of 150 in the stands to watch him.

But Miller (4-4) lasted only 27 pitches and didn’t get out of the first.

The third batter he faced was Green--and with two men already on, Green connected with Miller’s first pitch for a 440-foot home run to right-center.

Now famous for hitting homers in spurts, Green has five in the last five games, 21 on the season and 18 since May 21.

“It’s been a good streak. I just keep going out and trying to hit it hard,” Green said.

Ishii found a rhythm that had been missing.

“I think my timing in my other starts, maybe I was a little fast,” he said.

He also experimented by going to the stretch early in the game, just “to get more smooth,” he said.

Over the first four innings Ishii gave up only two hits and one run--a second-inning homer by rookie Joe Lawrence, Lawrence’s first in the major leagues.

He didn’t give up another run until the fifth, on Dave Berg’s RBI double.

Ishii was coming off a poor performance Friday against the Angels when he lasted only three innings, giving up six runs.

That and other roller coaster rides have left pitching coach Jim Colborn searching for key points in Ishii’s delivery to try to help him become more consistent.

“There’s a lot of moving parts,” Colborn said. “You might describe [his delivery] as violent. It isn’t exactly simple.”

Other theories have abounded, from whether Ishii’s routine between starts in the U.S.--so different from the structured, practice-intensive Japanese methods--isn’t working for him, to whether major league scouting is catching up to him after his dramatic start.

Colborn doesn’t put much stock in the training-methods theory.

And scouting? Colborn scoffs: “I’ve seen him pitch every game, and I don’t know what his tendencies are.”

It’s not that anybody can quibble with Ishii’s record--only the anxiety his methods sometimes induce.

There was little of that Wednesday.

“I think the word tonight is steady. That’s something unlike what we’ve seen the last four or five games,” Tracy said.