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LOS ANGELES-For most teams next week's All-Star break will be a welcome respite in the middle of a grueling season.
Give the Dodgers a choice, though, and they might just as well choose to continue playing. And with reason because with Thursday's methodical 6-1 win over the Colorado Rockies, the Dodgers added to a streak that has made the hottest team in the National League.
The victory was the team's fifth in a row and 17th in 23 games since Hanley Ramirez returned to the lineup full time. And it gave the Dodgers a winning record for the first time since April 15.
Three weeks ago, they were a season-worst 12 games under .500.
The win also kept the second-place Dodgers 1 1/2 games behind Arizona in the NL West. On June 22 they were last in the five-team division, trailing the Diamondbacks by 9 1/2 games.
And the Dodgers got there Thursday just the way they imagined they would when the season began: with great starting pitching and a relentless offense that put at least one runner on base in every inning but the sixth.
The Dodgers jumped on Rockies starter Drew Pomeranz (0-3) early and often, with four of their first seven batters getting hits. But a double play and a leaping catch by Carlos Gonzalez in front of the left-field bullpen gate kept the Dodgers off the scoreboard in the first.
Pomeranz would have escaped the second unscathed as well if catcher Wilin Rosario had held on to the ball after tagging Juan Uribe out the plate. He dropped it, though, allowing Uribe to score from first on Jerry Hairston's one-out double to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.
The Dodgers then broke the game open in the fourth when Pomeranz walked the bases loaded with no outs.
After pitcher Chris Capuano struck out, Mark Ellis singled in two runs to make it 3-0. It stayed that way until the eighth when a bases-loaded single by Ellis, his third hit of the night, drove in two more runs.
And when Andre Ethier followed with a run-scoring fly ball, a comfortable lead had turned into a rout.
Meanwhile Capuano (3-6), who had won just once just in the last two months, held Colorado to four singles, striking out eight, through six innings before leaving following consecutive one-out singles in the seventh.
In his two previous starts combined, Capuano gave up 17 hits and 13 runs (10 earned) in eight innings. This time he pitched into the seventh for the first time in seven starts, resting a bullpen left weary by Wednesday's 14-inning marathon in Arizona.
The top three hitters in the starting lineup - Ellis, Yasiel Puig and Gonzalez - combined to go 7 for 13 with Ellis driving in four runs. Uribe had two more of the team's 13 hits, scoring twice. But after striking out to start the seventh Puig, who has been battling a tight left hip, left the game and returned to the clubhouse.
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