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SAN DIEGO PADRES VS LOS ANGELES DODGERSBy Jon Weisman

When it comes to cold and hot running Crawfords, they don’t come much colder or hotter than Carl.

The Dodger left fielder put an exclamation point on his latest hot streak with his seventh-inning home run Tuesday off San Diego reliever Alex Torres, Crawford’s first home run in 122 at-bats since May 23 and his first homer off a left-handed pitcher since April 10, 2013.

Weirdly, Crawford’s last home run off a righty was against Roberto Hernandez, and his last homer off a lefty was against Eric Stults. Those are the two starting pitchers facing each other in tonight’s Dodgers-Padres game.

But my main point today is how streaky a hitter Crawford has been this year. We’ve seen him take two major down-and-up trips in 2014, bifurcated by his 6 1/2-week stay on the disabled list.

Crawford hot and coldIt’s easy to understand why Dodger manager Don Mattingly keeps the faith in Crawford, even when he looks ragged. When Crawford is hot, he’s scorching.

Interestingly, with this recent run of success, Crawford’s season OPS is almost even with that of Andre Ethier (.678). As the second-best Dodger baserunner behind Dee Gordon, thanks in no small part to 19 steals in 22 attempts (86.4 percent), Crawford does now have an overall production edge over Ethier in 2014.