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Ethier, Lowe help Dodgers draw closer to Diamondbacks

Sep 6, 2008 - 6:19 AM By Jonathan Raber PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Andre Ethier homered and drove in a career-high five runs and Derek Lowe tossed eight stellar innings for the Los Angeles Dodgers in Friday's 7-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Ethier finished 5-for-5 with a pair of doubles, coming up a triple short of hitting for the cycle after nearly accomplishing the feat on Tuesday. The five hits matched a career high for the right fielder.

"It's tough to beat 5-for-5," Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. "That's not too bad."

Russell Martin had a run-scoring double and scored three times and Blake DeWitt knocked in a run for Los Angeles (71-70), which has won six straight and can take sole possession of first place in the National League West with a win on Saturday after cutting the Arizona (71-69) lead to one-half game.

"These (next games) are the two most important games of the year so far," Ethier said. "We need these two to stay on track."

Lowe (12-11) extended his scoreless innings streak to 19 as he shut down the Diamondbacks.

"He was great," Torre said.

Lowe gave up two singles, striking out four and walking two on 101 pitches - 61 strikes.

"It was a very rewarding game," said Lowe, who became the only pitcher in the majors with at least 12 wins in each of the last seven seasons.

Arizona starter Dan Haren (14-8) struggled again in his shortest outing of the year. The All-Star righthander exited after four innings, surrendering five runs and six hits with four walks to suffer his second loss to the Dodgers in less than a week.

"Dan's a good pitcher and he commands the zone," Ethier said. "He has a tendency if he gets ahead and gets rolling is able to shutdown the offense. We got on him and kept jumping on him and chased him out of there early."

Haren, who served up five runs to Los Angeles on Saturday, has allowed five runs or more in four of the last six outings.

Ethier tallied his career-high and team-leading 20th home run, a solo shot, in the first inning to put the Dodgers in front.

Asked what the difference was between his earlier season hitting and his current tear, Ethier replied, "Two words - Manny Ramirez."

"It's unbelievable to be able to hit in front of him," said Ethier, who is batting .500 (19-38) over his last nine games. "It's a nice selection (of pitches) with him behind me."

The Dodgers added three runs in the second with some timely two-out hitting. Angel Berroa doubled and Lowe reached via a walk with two down before Martin doubled to bring home a run.

Ethier followed with a two-run single to make it 4-0.

"To me, (Ethier's) a complete player," Torre said. "We had some issues earlier this year where he got so frustrated because he wasn't hitting. He's grown a great deal."

After doubling home another run in the fourth, Ethier nearly completed the cycle in the sixth when he belted a ball to the right-center field gap.

Martin, who was on first, came around to score as Ethier attempted to make it safely to third. However, he briefly hesitated and stumbled while rounding second and was caught in between the bases for the third out.