Brad Penny 1st to 16 Wins in NL As Los Angeles Wins

Wednesday, September 13th 2006, 10:23 pm

By: News On 6

CHICAGO (AP) _ Brad Penny became the first 16-game winner in the National League and Rafael Furcal homered to help the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs 6-0 on Wednesday night.

Nomar Garciaparra added a two-run double and Furcal had three hits and three runs for the Dodgers, who maintained a 1 1/2 games lead over San Diego in the NL West. The Padres beat the Reds 10-0 on Wednesday night.

The Dodgers bounced back after suffering a 9-8 loss in 11 innings to the Cubs on Tuesday night. Los Angeles blew a 7-0 lead to Chicago, which has the worst record in the NL.

The Cubs have lost 20 of their last 26 games.

Penny (16-8) cruised for the easy victory. He pitched seven scoreless inning, scattering seven hits. He struck out six without allowing a walk.

He rebounded from a 7-0 loss to the Mets on Thursday. In that start, Penny gave up a season-high seven runs and 10 hits, including two homers, in 5 2-3 innings.

Cubs starter Angel Guzman (0-6) gave up a lead off double to Furcal in the fifth and walked Kenny Lofton. After a wild pitch, Garciaparra chased Guzman with a two-run double. Garciaparra scored on Marlon Anderson's sacrifice fly off Cubs reliever Will Ohman and Russell Martin hit an RBI-single to put the Dodgers up 6-0.

Guzman, who has yet to win a game in the majors, gave up five runs and eight hits in four-plus innings.

Furcal led off the third inning with his 12th homer of the season.

With runners on first and third in the first inning and two outs, Jeff Kent blooped an RBI-single to score Furcal.

Notes: Cubs reliever Glendon Rusch was diagnosed with a blood clot in his lung and will miss the rest of the season. A team trainer said the condition was not life threatening. ... Dodgers RHP Chad Billingsley _ who hasn't pitched since August 27 with a strained oblique muscle_ threw a simulated session before the game. Billingsley threw 77 total pitches and felt very good afterwards.