Shane Victorino Powers Phillies Over Dodgers, 5-3

Shane Victorino earlier on Monday was suspended for three games for his role in a brawl last Friday in San Francisco. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Victorino decided to appeal the suspension, played tonight, and hit two doubles and a home run to lead the Phillies to a 5-3 victory over the Dodgers in the series opener at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers have lost three of four to Philadelphia this season.

The Phillies scored early, and after an inning and a half held a 3-0 lead over the Dodgers. The Dodgers rallied, especially after Roy Halladay left the game, and eventually pulled to within a run, but a key runner's interference call against Juan Rivera stalled an eighth inning rally and helped prevent the tying run from scoring.

Hiroki Kuroda continued his hard luck season. Despite getting touched for a few early runs, he was still able to pitch into the seventh and give the Dodgers a quality start. However, it wasn't enough and Kuroda was tagged with his 14th loss of the season.

When Kuroda has given up a run this season, his record is 2-14, and the Dodgers are 2-15 in those games. Meanwhile, when the Phillies have scored three runs for Halladay this season, he is 14-0 and the team is 18-0 in those contests.

The heart of the Dodgers order -- Casey Blake, Andre Ethier, Matt Kemp, and Aaron Miles -- all had two hits, and Blake added two walks, but the Dodgers couldn't string enough hits together to make a difference. The Dodgers on the night had 13 hits, but they were all singles. The last time they had that many hits without an extra-base hit was June 22, 2006, against Seattle.

For more news and information on the Dodgers, or on the game itself, be sure to read True Blue LA.