PHOENIX – Five runs down.
Five starters, including MVP candidate Matt Kemp, on the disabled list.
The Hollywood sign could fall into Chavez Ravine and it would not matter. No impediment seems to get in the Los Angeles Dodgers’ way this season, as they proved again Tuesday.
The Dodgers overcame two five-run leads and were down to their last out before rallying to become the first team in the major leagues to 30 victories in an 8-7 win over the defending NL West champion Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field.
And while Andre Ethier, Kemp and a strong starting staff have carried the Dodgers most of the year, this time was the short-timers’ turn.
Three-day veteran Ivan De Jesus did most of the heavy-lifting with a two-out, two-run double in the ninth inning off D-backs closer J. J. Putz to drive in Elian Herrera and Bobby Abreu, each of whom had drawn one-out walks.
De Jesus was recalled Saturday, when Mark Ellis was placed on the disabled list with a left leg injury. Herrera has been up for eight days. Abreu has been with the Dodger almost three weeks, signing as a free agent May 4.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment,” said De Jesus, who missed most of 2009 with a fractured tibia suffered in spring training.
“I’m happy to help out and to help the Dodgers win a game. I’ll never forget this game. The energy is amazing. If we keep this energy we’re going to win a lot of games and get to the World Series.”
The Dodgers (30-13) have won six straight and are 7-2 since Kemp went on the disabled list last week with a hamstring injury.
They will throw an undefeated Ted Lilly against the D-backs in an attempt to sweep the three-game sweep Wednesday and stay at least seven games ahead of second-place San Francisco.
“It’s a resilient group. Guys don’t care that Matt’s hurt. I mean, we care, because you don’t want to see anyone hurt. But at the end of the day, we’ve got a job to do,” said Tony Gwynn Jr., who had three hits and scored twice.
Arizona (19-25) needed to win the series to get to within single digits of the Dodgers. Instead, the D-backs fell to 11 ½ games back, their largest deficit in two years. They had a similar record before recovering to win the division by eight games last season, but they were never further than 6 ½ games back, and that was on May 1.
There is role reversal at work here. The D-backs specialized in the 27-out game last season, rolling up a major league-high 46 comeback victories while winning 94 games. They never lost a lead larger than four runs, but this time could not hold 5-0 and 6-1 leads, the last coming when Lyle Overbay doubled to open the sixth and scored on Henry Blanco’s double.
The D-backs gave the Dodgers five outs with two infield errors in the seventh, one by new third baseman Josh Bell, who hit a 453-foot homer in the second for a 2-0 lead.
The Dodgers also got five hits during the rally that tied it at 6. Pinch-hitter Jerry Sands – he was recalled to replace Kemp on May 14 – doubled in a run and Gwynn singled in two. Abreu singled in the fourth run and De Jesus hit a sacrifice fly as a pinch-hitter to tie it.
“You know the door’s open. There’s a crack in it, and it’s just a matter of kicking the door open and letting the floodgates open, so to speak,” Gwynn said.
“We have to play better. We gave them a little bit of energy, and they went from there. When you have a team smothered like that, you can’t give them energy. You can’t get them get any air. You have to stay on top of them, and we didn’t,” said D-backs right fielder Justin Upton, who had three hits and drove in two.
Overbay capped a four-hit game with a bases-empty homer in the eighth, but Putz, who converted 44 of 48 save opportunities in 2011, blew his third save in 12 chances this year when his fastball leaked out over the plate to De Jesus.
“Every loss is tough, but the way the offense battled for us to get runs, and for us to turn around and give it away is just unacceptable,” Putz said.
The D-backs’ frustration was palpable. The D-backs had runners on the corners with one out in the ninth inning before Kenley Jansen got Jason Kubel to ground into a double play to end the game. Upton, who slid in hard to try to break it up, slammed his batting helmet to the ground twice after Dee Gordon’s one-hop replay to first got there in time.
“We got a little bit of taste of that last year when we were doing it,” Overbay said of the Dodgers’ comeback.
“We have to find a way to get on that ship and ride it out for awhile. You can tell which team is on a roll.”
Follow Jack Magruder on Twitter @JackMagruder
