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Former Brave Betemit strikes early, often in Dodger victory

Jul 4, 2007 - 6:06 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Wilson Betemit enjoys sticking it to his old team.

Betemit had three hits and four RBI and Matt Kemp delivered the go-ahead run as the Los Angeles Dodgers posted a 7-6 win over the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday.

In nine at-bats this campaign against the team that traded him last season, the switch hitter has four hits - including three homers - and seven RBI. Against the rest of the league, Betemit is hitting .182 (22-for-121) with six home runs and 17 RBI.

"I don't have anything against them, but I do seem to get more excited to play against some of my former teammates," Betemit said. "I have a lot of friends over there still and it's always good to play good against them."

Trailing, 3-1, in the bottom of the second, Betemit stroked a two-run shot into the bleachers in center off to knot the game at 3-3. In his next at-bat in the third and Los Angeles down, 6-3, he lined a two-run double to right to narrow the gap to 6-5.

"Wilson is having a lot of fun playing against his old team," Dodgers manager Grady Little said. "It's even more fun for him since he's playing well against them."

The switch hitter then reached by way of shortstop Edgar Renteria's throwing error in his next plate appearance in the fifth and finished with a single in the seventh.

Kemp, with two on and two out, preceded Betemit's single in the seventh with the go-ahead run as he grounded a 3-2 slider from Wil Ledezma (0-1) up the middle, scoring Jeff Kent. In the 19 contests in which he has competed in, Kemp has recorded multi-hit efforts in 11 of them, including Tuesday's effort.

"It was a good at-bat," Kemp said. "He challenged me and took it to me the whole at-bat. I worked the count to full and got a pitch out over the plate and drove it up the middle."

Rudy Seanez (5-1) pitched a flawless seventh to get the decision. Jonathan Broxton worked around a walk in the eighth before turning it over to closer Takashi Saito, who notched his 23rd save in 24 opportunities.

"The bullpen is great and have done extremely well all year," Dodgers starter Randy Wolf said. "When it gets late in games, it's almost automatic that we pull off a win when we got the lead."

Neither starting pitcher fared well in this contest. Atlanta's Kyle Davies surrendered five runs and six hits over two-plus innings while Wolf tossed just three frames, allowing six runs and five hits with four walks.

"He (Davies) just didn't have his best stuff working for him," Braves manager Bobby Cox said. "He got behind a lot of batters and ran into trouble early on which got his pitch count high fast."

Brian McCann hit a two-run homer and finished with three RBI for the Braves, who hit his fifth homer in 17 games after hitting just three in his first 54 contests. Atlanta has dropped three straight following a five-game skid.

"It was just one of those games where we thought it was going to be a battle offensively but both our bullpens came in and did a great job shutting each other down," McCann said. "I figured that my home run wasn't going to be enough, especially against an offense like the Dodgers."