Hiroki Kuroda earned just his second victory of his MLB career by holding the Reds to two runs and allowing the Dodgers to get a 5-2 win for the sweep.
The Reds scored first with one in the second but the Dodgers answered back in the bottom half of the inning with two. James Loney lead off with a walk, moved to third when Matt Kemp singled, and scored on a wild pitch. Kemp took third from a groundout and scored off a squeeze by Chin-lung Hu. The Reds tied it 2-2 in the fourth but the Dodgers added one to take the lead when Blake DeWitt scored on a pass ball after hitting a single. They added one more in the fifth when Matt Kemp scored after a wild pick-off attempt. Loney capped off the runs in the seventh with a two-out solo shot to right.
Kuroda’s only other win this season came in his MLB debut over a month ago. He then was tagged for three losses in his next eight starts before earning this win. Kuroda went eight innings, giving up just two runs on five hits. The only mistakes Kuroda made was yielding a leadoff double to Adam Dunn in the second for him to come around to score and giving up another run in the fourth off a sacfly. Kuroda’s native Japanese teammate, Takashi Saito, sealed the win for Kuroda by throwing a 1-2-3 ninth inning to pick up his ninth save.
The Dodgers are now 8-0 when the starter goes at least seven innings. The Dodgers have an off day today before opening a home series with the Cardinals this weekend.
