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Pierre's walk gives Dodgers win over Angels

May 24, 2009 - 7:04 AM LOS ANGELES(AP) -- Juan Pierre came up twice with the bases loaded against the Los Angeles Angels. The first time, he grounded into a force play that ended the second inning. The second, he drew a walk that ended the game.

Pierre didn't have an RBI in 97 career at-bats against the Halos until the 10th inning, when Jose Arredondo walked him on a 3-2 pitch and gave the Dodgers a 5-4 victory on Saturday night.

"Pierre made him work," manager Joe Torre said after the Dodgers improved their major league-leading record to 30-14 and maintained their 8 1/2-game lead over San Diego in the NL West. "The thing about Juan Pierre is that it's great having him up in those situations. He's been a leadoff hitter pretty much his whole life, so he knows if it's a ball or a strike."

Matt Kemp and Casey Blake opened the 10th with singles against Arredondo (1-1), and Juan Castro was sent up to bat for reliever Jonathan Broxton with the intention of bunting the runners over. But Arredondo walked him, then fell behind Pierre 3-0. Pierre took two strikes before letting the next one go by, and the Dodgers had their third game-ending walk of the season.

Broxton (5-0) allowed one hit over two scoreless innings for the victory.

Torii Hunter hit a go-ahead three-run homer and Juan Rivera also went deep for the Angels.

Angels right-hander John Lackey allowed three runs and seven hits over seven innings, struck out five and was lifted for a pinch hitter with a 4-3 lead before James Loney greeted Scot Shields with a leadoff double in the eighth and scored the tying run on Blake's single.

Shields, whose 442 1-3 innings are more than any reliever since the start of 2004, has allowed runs in eight of his 19 appearances - including three blown saves and three losses. His ERA this season is 6.75, and he declined to talk afterward.

Lackey hit three batters in his third start of the season, after missing the first six weeks of the campaign because of a forearm strain.

"I want to be down and in with those breaking balls, but not quite that far down and in," Lackey said. "But I definitely felt like I took a step forward and I feel like I'm really close to being back where I need to be. It was great to get over 100 pitches and stretch myself out."

Orlando Hudson had nothing but praise for Lackey after getting a single in four at-bats against him, extending his career-best hitting streak to 13 games.

"He was just pinpoint on top of his `A' game," Hudson said. "I mean, when people mention (Johan) Santana and (Roy) Halladay, I don't see how they don't mention Lackey's name. He's the kind of guy that makes you want to take a day off."

Rivera drove Randy Wolf's first pitch of the fourth inning just inside the left-field pole for his fourth homer, tying the score 1-all. It was the first home run by a visiting player at Dodger Stadium in eight games since May 7, when Wolf gave up a solo shot to Washington's Josh Willingham.

"If you throw enough innings, you're going to give up some home runs," Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt said. "But he battles and he gives you everything he's got every time he goes out there."

Hunter, who leads the Angels with 10 homers, gave them a 4-1 lead in the fifth when he sent a 3-2 pitch into the Dodgers' bullpen in left field with two outs. The seven homers hit against Wolf this season are the most on the staff.

"I made quite a few mistakes tonight," said the left-hander, who has seven no-decisions in his last eight starts. "I threw strikes, but I threw a lot of balls that got more of the heart of the plate than the corners. I left a changeup right over the plate to Hunter and he did what he was supposed to do with it."

The Dodgers closed the gap to 4-3 in the bottom half of the fifth on two-out RBI singles by Russell Martin and Loney. Martin also had an RBI double in the second, recording his first multi-RBI game since April 25 at Colorado, when he drove in four runs with a pair of singles in a 6-5 win.

Notes: The Angels club record for most hit batters in a game by one pitcher is four, a mark shared by Ken McBride, Omar Olivares, Scott Schoeneweis and knuckleballer Steve Sparks. ... Kemp, who set a Dodgers franchise record last season by striking out 153 times, went down on strikes his first three times up. It was the fourth time this season Kemp has struck out three times in a game.