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Webb dominates, Drew homers as Diamondbacks stay hot

Aug 1, 2007 - 6:02 AM SAN DIEGO (Ticker) -- Brandon Webb threw a gem and Stephen Drew homered to power the red-hot Arizona Diamondbacks past the San Diego Padres, 4-0, on Tuesday.

Rookie Chris Young homered for the fourth time in six games for Arizona, which has won nine of its last 10.

Webb (10-8) pitched seven scoreless innings while allowing three hits to pick up his second straight victory. The reigning Cy Young award winner walked two and struck out seven en route to defeating San Diego for the first time in four tries this season.

The righthanded sinkerballer threw 70 of 111 pitches for strikes and retired 13 of the last 14 hitters he faced.

"It's what you've come to expect from Brandon Webb," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "You go out there, you expect him to put up zeroes, and you get a couple of runs. Then you let him do his thing."

"Overall, (my command) was good," Webb said. "I lost it there for a little bit. It was better than it had been, I think, for the last couple of times."

Brandon Lyon added a scoreless eighth and Tony Pena threw a scoreless ninth.

Drew belted a two-run shot in the second, his eighth of the year, against San Diego starter Justin Germano (6-6) to stake Webb with a 2-0 advantage.

"My whole thought process was to get (Conor Jackson) over to third," Drew said. "I got a decent pitch to hit and put a good swing on it. It was one of those things where I was just trying to get him over, and luckily it went out."

Young padded the lead with a two-run blast of his own in the fifth, as Arizona moved one game ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the National League West Division.

"(Germano) had a good sinker, so I assumed he was going to try to get ahead with a fastball," Young said. "He just left it up a little bit."

San Diego, which trails Arizona by 1 1/2 games, managed only one legitimate scoring chance against Webb. Milton Bradley doubled with one out in the sixth and reached third on a groundout by Adrian Gonzalez, but Webb struck out Khalil Greene to end the threat.

"It was a little too much Brandon Webb," San Diego manager Bud Black said. "Going up against a Cy Young winner, you have to be stingy. They got four against us, and we just couldn't crack through against Webb. When we did have him in good counts or had an opportunity to break through, he made the pitch or got through the at-bat."

On the same night San Diego fired hitting coach Merv Rettenmund, the Padres collected just four hits and were shut out for the fifth time this season and third time in seven games at Petco Park.

Meanwhile, Germano allowed four runs in five innings en route to his third straight loss and sixth in his last seven outings. The 25-year-old righthander, who won his first five decisions for the Padres after being claimed off waivers from Philadelphia, walked one batter and struck out seven.

"Bottom line is I have to figure out what I've got to do to stop giving up those home runs," Germano said. "I made a couple of bad pitches, and that's what cost us the game. The home run has been hurting me a lot lately, and it's just a matter of keeping those pitches down instead of being lazy and leaving them up."

Bradley added two hits for the Padres, who have lost eight of 12 and four straight at home.