Blowout victory ends the first half

The Dodgers put it all together on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball, as they won the last game of the first half of the season in easy fashion, 7-0 over the Cubs. The win meant the Dodgers took three of four, and are tied with the Rockies two back of the Padres in the NL West.

Vicente Padilla got the Cubs in order to begin the game, then James Loney took over. Rafael Furcal doubled to lead off, and Matt Kemp walked. Andre Ethier struck out, but it didn't hurt as Loney crushed a three-run homer for the early lead. Loney has only six home runs, but 63 RBIs, good for fifth in the NL.

The second inning brought more runs, and pretty much ended any hope for the Cubs already. Blake DeWitt singled leading off. Padilla then laid down a perfect bunt in which the Cubs barely missed the tag. Raffy walked, and the bases were loaded.

Kemp lifted a sac-fly RBI to center, and it was 4-0. Everyone tagged up on the play, so the Cubs then chose to intentionally walk Ethier with first base open. Loney then ripped a grounder to first in which Silva was late covering. Umpire Brian Runge ruled Loney safe on a close play, even though the truth is he should have been out. Silva then got tossed for arguing.

Now up 5-0 on another Loney RBI, Xavier Paul closed out the scoring with a bases loaded walk for a 6-0 lead. Paul brought home another run in the fourth, though it was on a double play grounder, so no RBI.

With the Dodgers well ahead, the attention switched to Padilla's strong outing. Through five innings, he had given up no hits and struck out four. Would it be a night for a no-hitter?

Well... no. But it was fun while it lasted. Starlin Castro's leadoff double in the sixth ended that dream. Padilla would go on to pitch eight innings for two hits, no runs, one walk, and six strikeouts. That's now four straight fantastic starts by him, and he's no doubt given a big boost to the pitching staff that doesn't have a lot of depth.

The new All-Star Hong-Chih Kuo finished out the game in the ninth. He gave up a couple of hits with one out, but got Aramis Ramirez flying out and Xavier Nady grounding out to end the game.

Everything was clicking for the Dodgers on this night, as they couldn't have asked for a better way to strut their stuff to a national audience. We all remember the last time they played Sunday on ESPN, which was the Yankee meltdown. They've actually gone 9-4 since then.

It's been over three months since Opening Day, so people may have forgotten about Padilla pitching that first game and getting shellacked in Pittsburgh. Joe Torre received a fair amount of criticism for that decision. Well, we are all seeing now why Torre did that. When healthy, Padilla has some nasty stuff.

The other star of the show was obviously Loney, who continues to produce big at-bats. He's not a home run threat, but launched one tonight. He's probably one that wishes the All-Star break wasn't here since he's scorching the ball this month with a .447 average.

The Dodgers ended April with a 9-14 record, and their lack of offseason moves looked even worse. They've gone 40-25 since then for a 49-39 record. The NL West is very competitive again this year, so they'll need to keep their momentum going if they want to make the playoffs again.

Jonathan Broxton, Ethier, Furcal, and Kuo will now take the short trip to Anaheim for all the All-Star festivities. Once that's all over, the Dodgers will be back in action on Thursday for a four-game set in St. Louis.