updated 2:22 a.m. ET May 1, 2007

LOS ANGELES - Judging by the way Arizona manager Bob Melvin described Brandon Webb’s sinker, each baseball plate umpire Gary Cederstrom gave him might as well have had three holes drilled into it.

“You feel like you’re hitting a bowling ball when he’s on,” Melvin said Monday night after Webb allowed one run over seven innings for the Diamondbacks and recorded 14 of his 21 outs on grounders in a 9-1 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“You could see early on that he had that shot-put sinker going. It’s heavy — very heavy. Not only does it have great movement, it’s tough to get it in the air,” Melvin said. “I’ll tell you, when he’s throwing it in the bottom of the zone, there’s very little you can do with it — lefty or righty — even though you know it’s coming.”

Chris Young hit a pair of solo homers, helping stake Webb to a 7-0 lead. Last year’s NL Cy Young winner did the rest, limiting the Dodgers to four hits while striking out two and walking three.

“The sinker was working pretty well,” said Webb, who led all major league pitchers in ground-ball out ratio in each of the previous two seasons. “I was pounding the strike zone with it, getting some early swings, getting ahead in the count and getting a lot of ground balls, so I pretty much stuck with that and didn’t go to the off-speed stuff as much as I had been.”

Webb has allowed only four earned runs in 23 innings over his last three starts.

“I’m feeling better than I did in my first few outings, and I feel like I’m where I need to be right now,” he said following the Diamondbacks’ sixth straight victory. “With the guys we have in the rotation and in the bullpen, the pressure’s totally off me. So if I have a bad day, I know one of those guys will come in and pick me up.”

Webb allowed only one runner as far as third base through the first six innings. In the seventh, the right-hander gave up an RBI single to Andre Ethier and walked pinch-hitter Olmedo Saenz on a 3-2 pitch to load the bases. But he came back to retire pinch-hitter Wilson Valdez on a weak dribbler to the right of the mound.

“I kind of understand now when I hear players on the other team talk about his heavy sinker and how much movement his ball has,” former Diamondbacks teammate Luis Gonzalez said. “He got ahead in the count, threw strikes and got a quick run early. When that happens he gets a lot more confidence and he’s a lot more aggressive going after guys. So you see a lot of guys taking bad swings when they have two strikes.”

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