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Penny dominates as Dodgers pound Phillies

Jul 17, 2007 - 6:31 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Brad Penny continued his solid pitching right where he left off prior to the All-Star break, and the hot-hitting Dodgers gave him early run support.

Penny tossed seven solid innings and Jeff Kent and Matt Kemp each clubbed three-run homers as the Dodgers cruised to a 10-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Monday.

Rafael Furcal and Juan Pierre each had a pair of hits for Los Angeles, which is hitting over .300 as a team since Bill Mueller was named hitting coach a month ago.

"My job is to score runs and right now I'm doing that," Pierre said. "I don't care where I hit in the lineup because Furcal is getting on base and scoring runs too."

Penny (11-1) allowed one run and four hits while striking out eight and issuing three walks. The burly righthander has now won four of his last six starts.

"It felt good to get back out there after the break but it was a little uncomfortable going," Penny said. " (I) threw a lot of first pitch strikes and had good command."

Kent's third-inning blast was his 12th homer of the season and the 357th of his stellar career.

"It's good to see him (Kent) heating up," Little said. "He's the type of guy that can carry a team when he's hot."

In comparison, the rookie Kemp's sixth-inning shot was his third of the season, putting him above double-digits with 10 for his young career.

"I was a little jumpy in my first two at-bats so I just wanted to calm down, and I got a pitch to hit and hit it a good ways," Kemp said.

The Dodgers got to Phillies starter Jamie Moyer (7-8) early, putting six runs on the board in the first three innings.

"I just didn't have my control from the get go," Moyer said. "The location of my pitches were up and out over the plate."

Russell Martin led things off with a RBI ground in the first to even the game at 1-1 after Chase Utley's RBI single had given Philadelphia the early lead.

The RBI groundout was followed by a sacrifice fly by rookie James Loney to put the Dodgers ahead for good. Nomar Garciaparra capped off the scoring first with a RBI double to left which plated Kent and made it a 3-1 advantage.

Moyer took one for the team, suffering through 5 1/3 innings in order to give the beleaguered bullpen a small break. The veteran lefthander surrendered nine runs and nine hits, while striking out four and walking a pair.

"They have a good lineup over there and are swinging hot bats," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. "We have been swining good bats, too, so we just got to come out here tomorrow and play hard."

Los Angeles has now scored 32 runs in the four games since returning from the All-Star break last week.

"I'll take that run support anytime I go out," Penny said.

Philadelphia, which suffered its 10,000 regular-season loss in franchise history against the Cardinals on Sunday night, has yielded 10 runs in each of its past two games.