The Los Angeles Dodgers completed a sweep of the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday after a tricky chopper off of the bat of Mookie Betts that was originally ruled a hit, ended the game in a 3-2 walk-off win.
An unexpected pitcher’s duel between Mitch White and newly acquired Rockies starting pitcher, José Ureña, kept scoring to a minimum until the game was knotted at 2-2 heading into the bottom half of the ninth inning.
After singles from Cody Bellinger and Gavin Lux, Will Smith drew a walk to load the bases for Betts. The Rockies opted to deploy a fifth infielder, and Betts hit a high bouncer over the mound that was fielded by José Iglesias, who bobbled the ball, ending the game.
The initial scoring of the play was an infield single, but Major League Baseball has since changed it to a fielder’s choice that erased what would have been Betts’ first walk-off hit with the Dodgers.
Dating back to his days with the Boston Red Sox, Betts now is back to three career walk-offs, and this one didn’t take all of his power to make magic happen.
“Tough at-bat, it didn’t look pretty, but the job got done,” Betts said after Wednesday’s game.
The five-man infield initially appeared to be well-positioned to make the play at the plate, but Iglesias cut in front of Brendan Rodgers on his attempt to get to the high chopper so he could fire home to get Bellinger.
“It’s interesting. We don’t practice the five-man infield very often, so you’ve got Iglesias, who is incredible with the glove, and there was a little confusion there. He just couldn’t come up with it clean. If he makes it clean, there might be a force play at home,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.
“I don’t think it was one of Mookie’s best at-bats, but we’ll take the result. The Will Smith walk, coming off the bench, was huge to set it up for Mookie.”
Angels’ Jared Walsh appealed Tyler Anderson throwing error
Tyler Anderson was on the brink of MLB history last month as he got through eight no-hit innings in his start against the Los Angeles Angels in the Freeway Series finale.
The left-hander started the ninth inning at 117 pitches and struck out Mike Trout before Shohei Ohtani’s line drive to right field fell for a triple. Roberts then pulled Anderson after throwing a career-high 123 pitches.
While Anderson exited having only allowed the one hit, MLB made a scoring change that effectively ended his no-hitter a couple of innings earlier.
Jared Walsh was credited with a hit on his swinging bunt in the top of the seventh inning that Anderson fielded before throwing the ball into the ground and watching it roll to the outfield. The play was switched from Walsh reaching on an error to a single and advancing to second base on Anderson’s throwing error.
Walsh revealed that he appealed the scoring decision after Anderson lost his no-hitter, but wouldn’t have done so if the 32-year-old went the distance.
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