Four Cosas About the Dodgers 4-1 Victory Over the Padres

Here are the four moments in the Dodgers’ 4-1 win over the San Diego Padres:

4. Clayton Kershaw used 21 pitches to get out of the first inning. He is averaging 21 pitches in the first inning and in his eight-inning gem against Ubaldo Jimenez on May 9 made 30 pitches in that first inning. After falling behind to David Eckstein 3-0, Kershaw got him to ground to short. Kershaw also walked Adrian Gonzalez despite holding him to a .105 average lifetime.

3. Russell Martin’s double in the seventh inning. That extended his hitting streak to 15 games. He is two shy of Jorge Cantu’s Major League best 17-game hitting streak this season. Martin is batting .305 in that span and is the longest Dodger hitting streak since Orlando Hudson hit in 17 consecutive games from May 9-27, 2009.

2. The Dodgers’ three-run sixth inning. In a 1-1 stalemate, the Dodgers finally touched up Padres’ starter Kevin Correia with three runs. Three singles, an errant pickoff throw and a wild pitch doomed the Padres.

“When you have a well pitched ballgame you realize how important one run is,” manager Joe Torre said about the inning. “It’s a little easier to have that mindset than to try and score four or five runs. All of a sudden your swing gets bigger, you stop being patient at the plate.”

1. Clayton Kershaw’s 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball. It wasn’t the gem that we’ve seen on recent Sunday afternoons, but it got the job done just as well. He gave up seven hits and two walks and had runners on third three times. But he allowed only one of them to score - Everth Cabrera on Will Venable’s single in the third inning.

“He gets better,” Torre said. “He knows his stuff now and just looks a little more relaxed.”

“I walked two tonight which was a bit frustrating,” Kershaw said. “Other than that it was all right.”