There are plenty of reasons to remain skeptical about the Dodgers.

They are still 10 games under .500.

They still haven’t demonstrated an ability to score with any kind of consistency.

And the three-game sweep they completed Sunday was over the San Diego Padres, who replaced them as the last-place team in the National League West.

But after extended their winning streak to a season-long four games with a 4-1 victory over the Padres at Dodger Stadium, Manager Don Mattingly said he wished his team could continue playing rather than head into the All-Star break.

“It seemed like a good thing about four days ago,” Mattingly said of the midseason intermission.

The Dodgers are in fourth place with a 41-51 record.

“We still know the position we’re in and the position we’re trying to get back to,” Andre Ethier said. “That being said, it’s great. We feel good about bouncing back.”

The Dodgers are unbeaten since veteran infielder Jamey Carroll called a pregame, players-only meeting Friday. Tony Gwynn Jr. said the players set a goal of climbing out of last place before starting their four-day vacations.

Their latest victory came as a result of two home runs by Ethier and another fine performance by the pitching staff.

Ted Lilly (6-9) held the Padres to a run over five innings to earn his first win in five starts. Kenley Jansen, Hong-Chih Kuo, Matt Guerrier, Mike MacDougal and Javy Guerra combined for four shutout innings.

“Pitching is going to be our bread and butter,” Mattingly said.

The Dodgers, who have a team earned-run average of 3.89, held the Padres to one run over the last three days. The Padres were 0 for 25 with runners in scoring position in the series.

Mattingly said that was a credit to the Dodgers’ pitching, even though the Padres rank last in the NL in batting average and runs scored.

“The pitching staff has done a really good job all season,” Gwynn said. “As an offense, we’re finding ways to scrape enough runs to win games.”

The Dodgers received help from Gwynn’s former teammates Sunday.

With no outs and the bases loaded in the third inning, Matt Kemp hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Chase Headley, who backhanded the ball. Instead of touching third or throwing to first, Headley went home, only to send the ball to the right of catcher Rob Johnson.

Gwynn and Rafael Furcal scored to put the Dodgers ahead, 2-1.

“No matter how ugly it was at times, we found ways to win ballgames,” Gwynn said. “You look at the Padres over there, they probably have one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball.”

The Padres have a team ERA of 3.23.

Mattingly said he was proud of his team for continuing to fight, pointing out that the Dodgers went into Thursday on a five-game losing streak.

Gwynn said the Dodgers have the character necessary to deal with failure.

“We have a right bunch of guys in the clubhouse,” Gwynn said. “We have veterans, a bunch of young guys who want to learn and ask questions. Everybody gets along well in this clubhouse. If you have that kind of combination, it’s a lot easier to be resilient.”

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

Reporting from San Diego — The decision for Tony Gwynn Jr. and the San Diego Padres to part ways was made by the team, not the player.

But when Gwynn returns to Petco Park on Friday for the start of the Dodgers’ three-game series against the Padres, he said he doesn’t know how he’ll be received.

“I’m expecting the worst,” Gwynn said. “I’ll have the Dodger uniform on. I don’t think the last name on the back really matters at that point.”

He shares his name with his father, Tony Gwynn Sr., the most beloved player in the history of the Padres’ franchise and a Hall of Famer who accumulated 3,141 hits over a 20-year career.

L.A. Times Dodgers blog

Having spent a significant part of his youth in the clubhouse with his father, Gwynn Jr. is intimately familiar with the Dodgers-Padres rivalry. Gwynn Jr.’s uncle, Chris Gwynn, played for the Dodgers from 1987-91 and 1994-95 and for the Padres in 1996.

“With my dad playing for the Pads, I was rooting against [the Dodgers] all the time,” Gwynn Jr. said. “There were times my uncle wasn’t playing and I was upset about him not playing, so it just gave me a little more fire to root against them.”

Gwynn Jr. said he gained a greater appreciation for the rivalry in 1996, when the Padres beat out the Dodgers for the National League West title. The Padres swept the Dodgers in Los Angeles in the final series of the season to finish a game ahead in the standings. The Padres won the final game on a two-run, pinch-hit double by Chris Gwynn.

“From that point on, I started to understand how serious that rivalry was,” Gwynn Jr. said.

However, Gwynn Jr. still had a soft spot for the Dodgers’ cap, and as a teenager that got him in trouble with a certain record-setting Padres closer.

“I remember a couple of times Trevor Hoffman taking my hat away from me when I was in the clubhouse,” Gwynn Jr. said. “It was different colors, but it was an L.A. hat … From that point on, I never wore it again.”

Gwynn Jr. said there weren’t any down sides to growing up in the town his famous father worked. “I never looked at it as pressure,” Gwynn Jr. said.

Others tried to protect him from the inevitable comparisons.

In his first game at San Diego State, he was introduced as Tony Gwynn Jr. and didn’t get a hit. After that game, then-Aztecs coach Jim Dietz, who also coached his father and uncle, told him he would be called Anthony from then on.

Gwynn Jr. played his final two years at San Diego State under his father, who has been the Aztecs’ head coach since the fall of 2001.

Drafted by the Milwaukee Brewers in 2003, Gwynn Jr. was traded to the Padres six years later. He said moving to San Diego actually took pressure off him.

“People had seen me play since high school, college,” said Gwynn, who starred at nearby Poway High. “I didn’t have to worry about living up to my dad’s legacy out there. I was able to do my own thing.”

Just not for as long as he would have liked.

While advanced statistical measures indicate Gwynn Jr. was among the best defensive center fielders in baseball, his batting average dipped from .270 in 2009 to .204 last year.

With Gwynn Jr. eligible for salary arbitration for the first time, the Padres decided to cut ties with him instead of offering him a significant raise.

The Dodgers, who like what he adds defensively, picked him up on a one-year deal worth $675,000.

Gwynn Jr. has started in left field in two of the Dodgers’ six games, sharing time with Marcus Thames and Xavier Paul. He has two hits in 10 at-bats.

“I consider myself a man of faith and God had another plan for me regardless of how I felt about it,” Gwynn Jr. said. “I think coming here was probably the best thing that could happen for me.”

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com

The most famous smile in San Diego couldn’t be seen over the phone line, but it could be heard.

It could be heard when Tony Gwynn light-heartedly talked about how much easier it was to hit a baseball than fight for his life. Or when he spoke about coaching again, or his son’s move to the Dodgers.

Gwynn sounded upbeat. Sometimes, he even laughed.

Tony Gwynn sounded like Tony Gwynn.

“Things are about back to normal,” said the most beloved player in the history of the San Diego Padres.

Earlier this week, Gwynn, 50, returned to his office at San Diego State, where he has been the head baseball coach for the past decade — and was able to do so with a smile on his face.

Gwynn’s players haven’t seen much of the Hall of Famer since he was diagnosed in August with cancer in his parotid, a salivary gland along the jaw. Even on the days this winter when he visited the baseball field that bears his name, the players didn’t see the jovial man they knew.

Surgery to remove a tumor resulted in paralysis in the right side of his face, compromising his ability to smile or laugh. He couldn’t blink his right eye. Radiation and chemotherapy left him so weak that he had to use a walker to get around. He estimated that he lost about 80 pounds from his 300-plus-pound frame.

Usually, Gwynn “has a glow about him,” senior outfielder Pat Colwell said. “He jokes around; he has a huge smile.

“That just wasn’t there.”

As recently as a week ago, junior outfielder Brandon Meredith said the Aztecs were “preparing for the worst” — that Gwynn would miss the entire season.

But Gwynn said he is optimistic about his recovery. He completed treatment in December and has started an exercise program. He was healthy enough to undergo an operation last week to fix a disk problem that had bothered him for the last year and a half.

And when the Aztecs open their season Feb. 18 against Winthrop, he plans to be on the bench. He’s even hopeful he can be at their alumni game on Saturday.

He said he also intends to continue broadcasting Padres games on local television.

“I haven’t had any setbacks whatsoever,” Gwynn said. “I’m getting control of my face again.”

While Gwynn said he doesn’t consider himself cured — he has follow-up appointments scheduled — his progress has afforded him the luxury of reflecting on the last six months and asking himself, “How did I get through all of that?”

Gwynn said he wasn’t concerned when he required surgery in August to remove a tumor from his parotid. He had undergone two similar procedures in the past; both times, the tumor was benign.

Not this time.

Nothing in life had prepared him for that kind of news. Gwynn demonstrated unusual resolve as an athlete, working himself into a player who won eight National League batting titles and hit .338 over a 20-year career that was spent entirely with the Padres. But his battle with cancer required more than resolve.