Dodgers continue remarkable run, win 10th consecutive road game

Those big hits the Dodgers almost had been manufacturing in bunches lately? They seemed to have taken the night off. Vanished into the Toronto night.

Then a single strike away from suffering a tough one-run loss, the Dodgers tied the score on a gift double to Andre Ethier in the ninth inning and won it when Mark Ellis hit a two-run home run to spark a five-run 10th inning.

So on they rolled, pushing across an 8-3 victory Wednesday that completed their three-game sweep of the Blue Jays in Toronto.

BOX SCORE: Dodgers 8, Toronto 3, 10 inn.

The Dodgers have won six consecutive games, and for the first time since moving to Los Angeles, 10 consecutive road games. The last time they won at least 10 games in a row on the road was 1955, when the Brooklyn Dodgers won 11 consecutive games on the road and went on to win the World Series.

Overall, the first-place Dodgers have won 23 of their last 28 games.

Juan Uribe was issued a walk by reliever Juan Perez in the 10th inning and Ellis followed by drilling an 0-and-2 pitch into the second deck in left field for his fifth home run of the season. Yasiel Puig hit a home run and Ethier doubled in two runs.

And all those early-inning struggles were forgotten.

The Dodgers had become so accustomed to pushing runs across -- 33 in their last three games -- they had to be a little shocked to look up in the ninth inning to see they were one for 14 with runners in scoring position Wednesday and had left 11 runners on base.

The Dodgers at least scraped a couple of runs together early. They opened the scoring with a run in the second inning after loading the bases with no outs after Ethier singled, A.J. Ellis was hit by a pitch and Skip Schumaker lined a single.

Uribe drove in the run with a sacrifice fly, but a hard-hit grounder by Mark Ellis was turned into a double play.

In the third inning, Carl Crawford singled and Puig doubled him home. Puig, thinking he had hit a home run, flipped his bat and momentarily prepared to admire his work. But the next three Dodgers went down in order and a pattern had emerged.

Yet, all this was going on while Ricky Nolasco was holding the Blue Jays without a hit through four innings.

But in the fifth inning, after Nolasco walked two batters, Brett Lawrie collected Toronto’s first hit with a two-run double off the center-field wall.

With the Dodgers continuing to strand runners, it remained a 2-2 game until the eighth. Melky Cabrera greeted Ronald Belisario with a single. Rajai Davis pinch-ran, stole second and scored the go-ahead run when first baseman Adrian Gonzalez made a nice diving stop of a Jose Bautista grounder, but from his knees threw behind the covering Belisario.

Davis scored on what was ruled a single and Gonzalez was charged with an error that allowed Bautista to advance to second base.

The Dodgers were down to their last strike in the ninth against closer Casey Janssen when Ethier looped a single to center. Puig, on first after a walk, was running with two strikes. Center fielder Colby Rasmus charged the hit too quickly and it ricocheted high off the artificial turf. It bounced over his head, flicked off his glove and went behind him as Puig stormed home with the tying run and Ethier was left with a gift double.

Brandon League (5-3) continued to encourage, pitching two scoreless innings to pick up his second victory in as many nights. Kenley Jansen pitched a scoreless 10th.