Kemp Joins The Walk-Off Parade

A few innings after playing it cool while benches cleared, Matt Kemp sent the folks at Dodger Stadium home happy tonight, blasting a pitch from Juan Gutierrez into the left field pavilion with one out in the 10th inning, giving them a 1-0 victory and their second walk-off win in as many games to start the homestand.  It was the first walk-off home run of Kemp's career, and his second walk-off hit.  Kemp had a walk-off single last June 16 against Oakland.

Tonight was the first extra-inning 1-0 Dodger victory since August 13, 2006, which featured the epic Greg Maddux / Jason Schmidt pitching duel, and a walk-off home run from rookie Russell Martin.

John Ely was excellent again, putting yet another notch in his belt with seven scoreless innings.  However, much like his last outing in Chicago, the Dodgers gave him no run support.  You can't ask Ely for much better than two hit and two walks allowed, to go with his five strikeouts.  He lowered his ERA on the season to a club-best 2.54.

Ely lost 1-0 in Chicago on Thursday.  Before Ely, the last Dodger starter to be involved in back-to-back 1-0 games was Chad Billinglsey, who lost a pair of 1-0 games on August 3 and August 8, 2007.

Dan Haren was brilliant as well, gutting through a career-high 126-pitch effort to complete eight scoreless innings.  You get the feeling that manager A.J. Hinch won't go to his bullpen unless he absolutely has to.  Manny Ramirez was unable to take advantage of a tiring Haren, popping to center field on Haren's 126th pitch, just three weeks after hammering Edwin Jackson's 121st pitch off the wall in center field in Arizona to break open the game on May 12.

The Dodgers are now 7-1 against Arizona this season, and 17-5 against the National League West.  They pulled to within one game of the first-place Padres, who lost to the Mets.

McDonald Hurting

James McDonald's hamstring strain is more serious that first thought, and it might keep him out a while, per Tony Jackson of ESPN LA:

McDonald is presently on the seven-day DL and is at the Dodgers' spring-training facility in Glendale, Ariz., where he is throwing off flat ground. But he isn't expected to return to pitching competitively anytime soon.

"It's a significant strain," Dodgers trainer Stan Conte said. "It's not a small one. We call it a Grade 2 out of a possible three. We'll just have to see how long it takes. We don't believe it's a matter of days. It's longer than that."

Carlos Monasterios faces off with old friend Edwin Jackson in the series finale tomorrow at noon.

WP -Jeff Weaver (3-1):  1 IP, 1 hit, 1 strikeout

LP - Juan Gutierrez (0-5):  1/3 IP, 1 hit, 1 run

Box Score