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Kemp, Stults help Dodgers complete sweep of Reds

Jun 19, 2008 - 9:34 PM By Douglas Tifft PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CINCINNATI (Ticker) -- Eric Stults made his 2008 debut an excellent one and Matt Kemp had a home run and three RBI as the Los Angeles Dodgers completed a three-game sweep with a 7-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday.

The victory was Los Angeles' seventh in eight games against Cincinnati. The Dodgers outscored the Reds, 16-6, in the sweep.

A 28-year-old lefthander, Stults made his first start of the season for the Dodgers after injuries to Jason Schmidt, Brad Penny and Hiroki Kuroda opened a spot in the rotation.

"I don't know how long (my stay in Los Angeles) is going to be," Stults said. "I am going to look at it as hopefully I will get in a groove, and get in the rotation here. That's the plan. Anything that I can do to help the team win games."

Stults (1-0) went six-plus innings, giving up three runs - one earned - and six hits with five strikeouts.

"The key for me is just to be aggressive," Stults said. "To get 'strike one' is huge, putting the batter on the defense. That was my goal from the first pitch."

After Russell Martin got the Dodgers on the board in the first inning with an RBI double, Kemp blasted a ball 422 feet to right field for his sixth home run of the season off Reds starter Aaron Harang (3-10) in the fourth for a 2-0 lead. Juan Pierre also drove in a run on an RBI single later in the fourth.

"The thing we have been failing to do lately was getting quality at-bats," said Dodgers manager Joe Torre, whose team snapped a five-game losing streak with the sweep of the Reds. "We were much better with that (in this series)."

Kemp extended Los Angeles' lead to 5-0 in the top of the fifth, lining a double to right-center field to score two runs. James Loney added an RBI single in the sixth.

"All of us had some pretty good at-bats today," Kemp said. "We got some good pitches to hit, and we got hits when we need them, when runners were on base. We just got the job done today."

The Reds tried to make it interesting as Brandon Phillips capped a four-run seventh inning with a two-run single to center.

But that would be as close as Cincinnati would get as Los Angeles reliever Jonathan Broxton pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings and Takashi Saito worked a scoreless ninth for his 10th save of the season. Andre Ethier had given the Dodgers an extra insurance run with an RBI single in the top of the ninth.

Harang lasted only five innings, giving up five runs and 10 hits with three walks and two strikeouts.