Arizona's Mark Reynolds slides in with a fifth-inning double. He ended up stranded, one of 10 runners the D-backs left on Sunday.

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LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers appear to have the Arizona Diamondbacks on the run, although they won't dare admit it.

James Loney had three RBIs and Los Angeles completed a three-game sweep of Arizona on Sunday with a 5-3 victory that gave it a 1 1/2-game lead on the Diamondbacks in the NL West.

"We're excited, but we've just got to continue," said Nomar Garciaparra, who drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly. "Obviously, they're the ones we're competing against trying to win this division. But there's no time to let up and start patting ourselves on the back. We've got a long way to go."

Los Angeles tied a season best with its eighth straight win, following an eight-game skid. Hong-Chih Kuo (5-2) pitched 1 1/3 innings of relief for the victory and Jonathan Broxton got four outs for his 13th save.

Broxton gave up a two-out double in the ninth to pinch hitter Chad Tracy and walked Adam Dunn, bringing Conor Jackson to the plate as the potential go-ahead run. But Garciaparra robbed Jackson of a hit with a diving catch of his line drive in the hole between first and second for the final out.

"I think it's pretty incredible to expect to come back and take those eight losses and turn them around in that big a hurry," manager Joe Torre said. "It's one of those Dramamine trips — it's up and down and you strap yourself in, because that's what's going to happen this time of year."

The Diamondbacks, who won their fourth division title last season, had no worse than a share of the division lead for 137 consecutive days this time around before the Dodgers beat 19-game winner Brandon Webb for the second time in a week on Saturday.

The Dodgers' final 19 games are against teams that have losing records and are a combined 83 games under .500. They have six left with San Diego (55-88), three with Colorado (67-77), four with Pittsburgh (60-82) and six with San Francisco (62-80).

"There is no psychological advantage," Torre said. "The only thing is that you can control your own destiny. You don't need to watch the scoreboard. If you win your share of games, you're going to finish in first place. What that share is, we don't know. And if you don't win, it's nobody's fault but your own."

The turning point in this race may have come after the D-backs took the opener of a three-game set with the Dodgers in Phoenix on Aug. 29 to open up a 4 1/2-game margin. Los Angeles came back the next two nights with victories.

"That's baseball. Anything can happen," Arizona shortstop Stephen Drew said. "But we've got 20 games left. We're not playing them anymore, so we've got to focus on going into San Francisco. … I've still got a good feeling about it."