Dodgers show they can win one in showdown

SAN DIEGO -- David Wells, with 21 big league seasons and two World Series titles under his stretched-to-the-limit belt, couldn’t do it. Derek Lowe, with his two All-Star appearances and four postseason victories, couldn’t do it.

So Sunday it fell to 23-year-old Chad Billingsley to salvage something from the weekend Showdown Series in San Diego and keep the Dodgers, at least mathematically, in the National League playoff chase.

And the right-hander responded with seven shutout innings in a 5-0 win over the San Diego Padres, allowing the Dodgers to avoid being swept in a series they needed to win to advance in a pennant race they once dominated.

“It was a big series for us. We had to at least take one,” Billingsley said. “If we would have been swept, it would have hurt a lot.

“Next series is a big series also. So we’ve just got to come out [in Chicago] and try to win it.”

The Dodgers really have no choice given their performance over the last six weeks. On July 21, they had the best record in the National League. But they are 16-22 since then, better than only the White Sox, Brewers, Tigers and Marlins.

Even Tampa Bay, with the worst record in the majors, has won more often than the Dodgers during the last month.

As a result, the Dodgers have dropped from first to third in the NL West. And though they picked up a game in the division standings and the wild-card race with Sunday’s win -- moving to within four games of the lead in both -- they still face a steep uphill climb with only six of their final 26 games against teams with losing records.

“We’re down, but we’re not out,” Manager Grady Little said. “There’s always a chance, and we have a chance. We just can’t miss many steps between here and the end.

“But every game we’re playing right now is not do or die.”

Sunday’s game might have been close, though, since a loss would have left the Dodgers needing to make up nearly two games a week between now and the end of the season. And Billingsley (10-4) made sure that didn’t happen, giving up only four hits and striking out a career-high nine for the second time in nine weeks. That gave him 18 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings -- and 29 strikeouts -- in 19 2/3 innings against San Diego this season.

He was so dominant, in fact, the Padres got only one runner as far as second base against him. But Billingsley left Adrian Gonzalez there by striking out two of the next three hitters and getting the other batter to foul out to end the fourth.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, got runners on against Padres starter Justin Germano in every inning but the second, pushing men into scoring position four times in Germano’s six innings.

They couldn’t get on the scoreboard until the sixth, however, when Matt Kemp led off with a single to right, stole second, moved to third on Jeff Kent’s fly to right and came home on an Andre Ethier single, giving the Dodgers their first run in 15 innings.

“We were just waiting for that big hit and we got it from Dre. And we just rolled from there,” Kemp said. “Every game is big now. We’re in a race, and we’re trying to get back in the mix of things.”

Germano (7-8) didn’t come out for the seventh, and the Dodgers teed off against the league’s best bullpen, scoring four times against relievers Kevin Cameron and Joe Thatcher to put the game away.

Kemp fueled that rally too, when his third hit of the day scored Rafael Furcal to make it 2-0.

Kent followed with an RBI single of his own, giving the Dodgers their first multi-run rally in 31 innings. And when James Loney doubled in two runs three batters later, the Dodgers went up 5-0, their biggest lead in 11 days.

For Furcal, who had three hits and stole three bases on a sore left ankle, there’s no use saving anything for tomorrow, because the Dodgers are quickly running out of tomorrows.

“Today we came back, won this game and made something happen,” he said. “We’ve [only] got a month to go.”

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