The rubber match between the Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday afternoon at Coors Field featured two pitchers attempting to change their misfortunate to begin the season. Jordan Lyles and Alex Wood got off to drastically different starts, which spelled trouble for Colorado.
Lyles battled command issues in the top of the first, issuing three consecutive walks to load the bases with two outs. However, he managed to escape the jam thanks to an athletic play by Nolan Arenado on a Howie Kendrick dribbler up the third base line.
Wood opened the bottom half with back-to-back strikeouts of Brandon Barnes and Trevor Story. Carlos Gonzalez then grounded out to close out a quick inning for Wood. Lyles handed out his fourth free pass of the game as he issued a leadoff walk to Joc Pederson in the second.
Trayce Thompson followed with a double down the left field, putting runners on second and third with none out. Wood hit a soft grounder to shortstop, which resulted in Thompson getting thrown out on his attempt to advance to third base, but Pederson also scored on the play to give the Dodgers a 1-0 lead.
Story was unable to cleanly field a Chase Utley grounder and his error kept the inning alive for the Dodgers. Corey Seager then drew a walk to load the bases a second time in as many innings. Whereas the Dodgers came away empty the first time, Yasiel Puig ensured that wouldn’t repeat.
His two-run double pushed the lead to 3-0. Another run came across on Adrian Gonzalez’s RBI groundout before Lyles could get out of the inning. The Rockies responded in their half of the inning, starting with a Nolan Arenado leadoff walk.
He moved into scoring position on a wild pitch and later scored on Gerardo Parra’s RBI single up the middle. The Dodgers offense tacked on some more support for Wood in the top half of the third inning.
CONTINUE READING: Dodgers answer Rockies’ five-run eighth inning with five-run ninth
