LOS ANGELES (AP) — Casey Blake homered for the third time in five games and made a critical defensive play in the ninth, Matt Kemp also hit a solo shot and Blake DeWitt had a two-run triple to lead the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 6-4 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday night.
Rookie John Ely (3-1) allowed two runs and eight hits through six-plus innings and struck out three in his fifth big league start, helping the Dodgers win for the 13th time in 14 games.
The 24-year-old right-hander has a 2.45 ERA in his last four outings and has walked only one during that stretch.
Ely walked Brandon Inge on four pitches in the first inning, snapping a string of 89 consecutive batters without a base on balls, but retired his next nine in a row and didn't let another runner get past second base.
Detroit's Brennan Boesch greeted Ramon Troncoso with a home run to dead-center leading off the eighth. The right-hander walked his next batter, got a double-play ball from Gerald Laird, and then hit Austin Jackson flush on the helmet with a 2-2 pitch. Manager Jim Leyland and trainer Kevin Rand rushed to the aid of the talented rookie, who was able to make it to the dugout under his own power and was replaced by a pinch-runner.
Jonathan Broxton gave up a run-scoring ground-rule double to Boesch in the ninth before getting his 10th save. One batter earlier, Blake made a diving stop on Miguel Cabrera's sharp grounder toward the hole and got the force at second.
Armando Galarraga (1-1) gave up six runs — five earned — and eight hits over 4 2-3 innings in his second start this season for the Tigers. In his only other start against the Dodgers, on June 13, 2008, he pitched three-hit ball over seven innings in a 5-0 win at Detroit.
With the Tigers unable to use a DH in an NL park during this interleague series, Jackson was the odd-man out in a starting outfield consisting of Boesch, Magglio Ordonez and Johnny Damon. Jackson pinch-hit for Adam Everett leading off the seventh and legged out a broken-bat infield single that sent Ely to the showers.
Blake booted Ramon Santiago's grounder to third base for his seventh error and Hong-Chih Kuo walked Ordonez, loading the bases for Cabrera and putting the potential tying run at the plate in a 6-2 game. But Kuo fielded Cabrera's slow bouncer near the third-base line, took a full windup and threw his best fastball of the day to first base for the third out.
Blake, who had three homers in his first 35 games, led off the second with a drive into the lower seats in the left-field corner to tie it at 2. He also singled during three-run fourth highlighted by James Loney's go-ahead RBI single and DeWitt's third triple in five games. But Galarraga stranded DeWitt by retiring Jamey Carroll and Ely on grounders to third and getting Russell Martin to foul out to first, keeping the score at 5-2.
Martin, who got a day off Friday after catching 22 consecutive games, was 0 for 3 with a walk — ending his career-best hitting streak at 15 games.
NOTES: Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson, who guided the Tigers to a World Series title in 1984 and led them for 17 seasons, came down from his home in Thousand Oaks to visit with Leyland and Dodgers manager Joe Torre on the field during batting practice. The three have combined for 5,901 regular-season victories, 13 pennants and eight World Series titles as managers. ... Among the crowd of 45,117 was actress Lorraine Bracco, who is no stranger to Dodger Stadium. She filmed a number of scenes at the ballpark for the 1991 baseball flick "Talent For The Game." ... Ramirez needs three RBIs to tie Frank Robinson's 1,812 for 18th on the career list.
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