The underbelly of the Los Angeles Dodgers bullpen was exposed once again Wednesday night in a 9-8 loss to the Colorado Rockies. The teams now meet Thursday for the series rubber match as the Dodgers continue with their six-game road trip.
Both teams benefitted from and were hurt by the patented Coors Field effect, with Michael Grove the first to succumb to its challenges. Grove was not particularly sharp but a bevy of soft contact allowed the Rockies to take a 4-0 lead through four innings.
Grove didn’t help his cause by failing to put batters away. All three of the Rockies’ run-scoring hits off Grove came with two outs.
Grove appeared to deal with a cramp in his right calf but remained in the game and got through the fifth inning. He was in position to earn a win thanks to the Dodgers exploding for a six-run inning.
Kyle Freeland took a no-hitter into the fourth inning that was lost when Miguel Rojas hit a soft single that loaded the bases. Freeland then walked Jonny DeLuca, who collected the first RBI of his career in the process.
Yonny Hernández, making his first start with the Dodgers, hit a soft line drive that got through the middle of the infield for a two-run base hit that cut the Rockies’ lead to 4-3. Mookie Betts followed that by snapping a hitless start to the road trip with a three-run home run.
The homer was Betts’ 20th of the season out of 76 overall hits.
Although Grove was able to sustain some of the momentum, the Dodgers bullpen immediately squandered the lead as some of the group’s experienced regression that had largely been absent over the past week.
Victor González was first enter the game, and he faced some traffic after allowing a single and double with one out.
González hit the next batter and gave way to Nick Robertson with the bases loaded. The rookie reliever promptly walked a run in and gave up a bases-clearing double to Ezequiel Tovar that put the Dodgers back into a deficit. Elias Díaz added an RBI single before Robertson could get through the inning.
Dodgers rally falls short
Díaz’s two-out hit wound up looming large as the Dodgers attempted to stage a late rally.
Singles by Jason Heyard and David Peralta started the comeback effort and led to Hernández collecting his third RBI of the night with a sacrifice fly in the eighth inning. Freddie Freeman contributed an RBI single and Will Smith walked to load the bases, but J.D. Martinez went down swinging.
Justin Lawrence took over in the ninth inning to convert the save opportunity.
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