Here are some postgame notes from tonight's 3-1 Dodgers' win over the Padres, as they avoided the sweep by San Diego.
Hong-Chih Kuo struck out all three batters he faced in the ninth inning tonight, lowering his ERA to 1.29. In 26 appearances at Dodger Stadium this season, Kuo has allowed one run over 29 innings, with six walks and 25 strikeouts. Kuo is closing in on the best ERA in the 127-year history of the Dodgers, with a minimum of 50 innings. Eric Gagne in 2003 had an club-record ERA of 1.202 in 82 1/3 innings in his Cy Young winning season of 2003, but with four more scoreless innings Kuo could lower his ERA to 1.200.
Hiroki Kuroda has pitched six innings or longer in each of his last 14 starts. During that span, he has a 2.76 ERA but has a hard luck 4-7 record, as the Dodgers have scored 33 runs in those 14 starts, an average of 2.36 runs per game. Kuroda has a quality start in 11 of his last 13 outings.
Andre Ethier's two hits gave him 41 multi-hit games this season, tying James Loney for the club lead.
Old friend Octavio Dotel, traded last weekend from the Dodgers to the Rockies, gave up a home run tonight to Chris Young, as the Rockies lost 10-9 in Arizona to fall three and a half games behind the first-place Giants.
Will Venable of the Padres went 3-for-3, and hit .372/.462/.558 against the Dodgers this season.
Venable was also thrown out trying to steal second base, and catcher Rod Barajas had him by several feet. After allowing 31 straight runners to steal second base since Russell Martin suffered a labrum tear in his hip on August 3, Dodger catchers have thrown out five of nine would-be stealers in the last two weeks.
Finally, tonight's out-of-context quote theater brings us to Vin Scully, who was waxing poetic during the broadcast about Leo Durocher. As transcribed by David "Answer Man" Brown of Yahoo! Sports:
Vin Scully: "Leo Durocher was very big into alpaca sweaters."