Whether impacted by a late night of travel or partially due to a letdown against an inferior opponent, the Los Angeles Dodgers were overmatched by Chad Kuhl in a 4-0 loss to the Colorado Rockies.
The Dodgers were shut out at Coors Field for the first time since Aug. 31, 2016, in a game Tyler Anderson started for the Rockies. The Dodgers additionally were on the wrong end of a complete-game shutout at Coors Field for the first time in franchise history.
One positive on Monday was Anderson getting through six innings for L.A. despite a shaky start to his night. That helped preserve a Dodgers bullpen that used six different pitchers in the series finale against the Atlanta Braves.
The Rockies took an early lead on Anderson by scoring with two outs in the first and second innings. Anderson worked three consecutive scoreless frames after that to keep the Dodgers’ deficit at a manageable 2-0.
However, that increased when Anderson surrendered a home run to José Iglesias in the sixth inning. The Rockies potentially could have added to their lead if not for Randal Grichuk running into a double play to end the inning.
Anderson didn’t have a clean inning in his start and the 10 hits allowed matched a season high. The outing was a second case of some regression for Anderson since throwing a career-high 123 pitches in pursuit of a no-hitter.
At the time that wound up being lost on a Shohei Ohtani one-out triple in the ninth inning, though a recent scoring change erased an Anderson error in the seventh to credit Jared Walsh with an infield single.
Chad Kuhl shuts down Dodgers lineup
Allowing four runs at Coors Field normally would be considered an acceptable outing, but the Rockies’ lead was insurmountable as Kuhl threw the first complete game of his career.
He allowed just three hits and threw a mere 102 pitches. One of the Dodgers’ hits was a Gavin Lux single in the third inning that was erased when he ran into a double play on attempt to tag up when Trayce Thompson flied to deep center field.
Lux later led off the ninth inning with a double to give the Dodgers their first runner in scoring position.
Prior to that, Kuhl retired 11 in a row before Freddie Freeman dropped a one-out single into right field in the eighth inning to extend his hitting streak to 11 games. Freeman was named National League Player of the Week for the period of June 20-26.
The Dodgers were shut out at Coors Field for the first time since Aug. 31, 2016, in a game Tyler Anderson started for the Rockies.
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