SPORTS STORY’S MRI SHOWS NO STRUCTURAL DAMAGE
Los Angeles Dodgers right fielder Matt Kemp signals safe, but firstbase umpire Tony Randazzo disagrees as Rockies first baseman Ian Desmond squeezes the baseball during the first inning Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium. Kemp still had an RBI single on the
LOS ANGELES» Chris Taylor blasted a oneout, walkoff home run off Adam Ottavino in the 10th inning at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night, gutpunching Colorado at the end of a gritty bout that saw the Dodgers increase their NL West lead to 1½ games over the Rockies.
Kyle Freeland and Clayton Kershaw went toe to toe to live up to the hype of an ace showdown, and each bullpen held its own until Taylor’s decisive blast 411 feet to left field sent the Dodger Stadium faithful into a frenzy.
Thus the night finished with bad news for the Rockies, a few hours after getting good news that an MRI revealed no structural damage to shortstop Trevor Story’s elbow. Manager Bud Black said Story might return in a few days.
Los Angeles capitalized on Colorado’s seasonlong ineptitude in the first inning with Matt Kemp’s RBI single on his bobblehead night, ushering in a 10 lead for the Dodgers.
But in the third inning, the Rockies took advantage of uncharacteristic Kershaw walks as well as a Bad News Bearsesque play to tie the game 11. Both Garrett Hampson and Charlie Blackmon drew fullcount free passes, and then DJ LeMahieu’s wouldbe in ningending groundout was missed by Justin Turner at third base before scooting by a slipping Taylor in left field.
Hampson came around to score as a result, and it finally felt as if the Colorado offense was getting a break from the baseball gods, despite its anemic performance on the road trip to that point and the fact that Kershaw was still working on a nohitter.
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Colorado took its first lead of the series in the fifth inning via Charlie Blackmon’s 27th home run of the season, a nodoubt, 447foot blast to rightcenter that made it 21.
Los Angeles struck back with its own run in the bottom of the inning, though. Austin Barnes led off with a walk, and Kershaw bunted him over. Then Taylor’s infield single set chaos in motion, as third baseman Nolan Arenado charged the slow roller down the line but couldn’t field the barehander cleanly.
Then, attempting to backpick Barnes as he took a hard turn around third, Arenado’s toss to Garrett Hampson — as the shortstop’s movement to third base was barricaded by the positioning of the umpire — rolled into shallow left field to allow Barnes to score to tie the game at 22.
But Freeland was able to minimize the damage from there, inducing a Manny Machado popup and a David Freese strikeout to strand two runners and keep the game even. Freeland finished allowing two earned runs across 6M innings, working around unusual erraticism by way of four walks.
Kershaw, too, battled walks (five total) and out of a jam in the seventh inning thanks to a diving play by Turner in the shortstop hole on a sharply hit grounder by DJ LeMahieu. Turner, making up for his error that led to Colorado’s first run, snared the ball and fired to first to strand two Colorado runners.
Scott Oberg continued his dominance with oneplus innings of work behind Freeland, including getting the final out of the seventh to work around Arenado’s second error in a game for the first time since 2016.
Kenta Maeda struck out the Colorado side on 10 pitches in the eighth, and then Colorado couldn’t bring around Gerardo Parra from second base with no outs after the veteran single and stole second to start the ninth off Kenley Jansen. Scott Alexander and Dylan Floro shut out the Rockies in the 10th.