Dodgers take it to the next leveling

By Dylan Hernandez

April 30, 2008 2:04 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

MIAMI -- The Dodgers reached the first goal Manager Joe Torre set for the club, their 7-6 victory over the Florida Marlins on Tuesday night pushing their record to an even .500.

“Now,” Torre said, “we have to think of five over.”

The suddenly surging Dodgers won their fourth consecutive game by once again leaning on their bullpen, which began the night an arm short because a pregame MRI exam revealed that setup man Jonathan Broxton had a strained muscle by his armpit.

Scott Proctor, Joe Beimel and Takashi Saito combined to fire four scoreless innings in relief of starter Derek Lowe, making it possible for a ninth-inning single by Jeff Kent that scored Andre Ethier to be the difference in the game.

The bullpen has given up only one earned run in its last 21 innings and could be back at full strength soon, as Broxton is listed as day-to-day. Torre said the MRI exam showed no structural damage.

“I’ll be back in a couple of days,” said Broxton, who said he felt tightness in the muscle, called the latissimus dorsi, when pitching the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ win over Colorado on Sunday. Broxton kept quiet about the injury until the next day.

Even with Broxton available, Torre said he might have opted to go with the left-handed Beimel in the eighth inning of the 6-6 game, since the Marlins had two left-handed hitters due up, Jeremy Hermida and Luis Gonzalez.

“I think we’ve pitched pretty well all year,” Beimel said. “Hopefully, we can continue on this streak that we’re on.”

Beimel’s scoreless inning followed two by Proctor that Torre said “sort of settled things down for us.”

The NL East-leading Marlins scored three unearned runs in the inning that preceded Proctor’s entrance, erasing what was left of what had been a five-run lead for the Dodgers. Opening the floodgates for the Marlins was a two-out fielding error by James Loney with no runners on.

Until the ninth, the Dodgers did all of their scoring in the first three innings.

They went ahead, 1-0, in the first when Russell Martin singled to left to drive in Ethier. The once-slumping Martin is hitting .409 (nine for 22) over his last six games.

The Dodgers added four more runs in the second, when back-to-back two-run singles by Matt Kemp and Kent increased the advantage to 5-0.

Lowe couldn’t take advantage of the rare run support.

“Just a lot of pitches over the middle of the plate,” he said.

If this game was a setback of sorts for Lowe, it marked a resurgence of Saito, who picked up his third save.

Of the Saito who was on the mound on this night, Torre said, “That was him” -- as opposed to the impostor who blew two of his previous four save opportunities.

Saito credited a small adjustment he made to his delivery before his previous outing, with the help of pitching coach Rick Honeycutt.

He said he knew something wasn’t right when he issued a four-pitch walk to Ryan Spilborghs of Colorado on Friday night. Willy Taveras pinch-ran for Spilborghs and scored, costing the Dodgers a one-run lead and forcing them to play 13 innings to earn the victory.

“It was something that had almost never happened to me,” Saito said. “I felt like I had to do something.”

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