Guerrero’s first slam pulls out win for L.A.
Bases-clearing homer with two outs in ninth stuns Rockies
DENVER— Alex Guerrero picked a great time to hit his first major league grand slam.
With two outs in the ninth inning, the bases loaded and the Dodgers trailing the Rockies by three runs, the left fielder homered to straightaway center field, giving Los Angeles a 9-8 win over Colorado and a split of a day-night doubleheader Tuesday.
The Rockies won the first game 6-3, with catcher Michael McKenry hitting a homer and driving in three runs.
Guerrero’s grand slam came against Rafael Betancourt (2-2), who gave up three straight singles to load the bases with no outs. Betancourt came within one strike of ending the game before Guerrero blasted his 10th homer of the season on a 1-2 fastball.
Center fielder Charlie Blackmon said the ball touched his glove as he made a leaping attempt at the wall.
“At first I wasn’t sure (if the ball cleared the fence),” Guerrero said, with third-base coach Lorenzo Bundy interpreting. “As I kept running, I said, ‘I think so.’ ”
Betancourt, who gave up a grand slam for the third time in his career, was pitching because Rockies closer John Axford threw 22 pitches while nailing down a save in the afternoon game.
Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen came on in the bottom of the ninth and gave up a one-out double to Carlos Gonzalez. The right fielder moved to third on third baseman Nolan Arenado’s hard grounder to shortstop but was stranded there when Jansen struck out first baseman Ben Paulsen to earn his fifth save.
The winning pitcher was Josh Ravin (1-0), who struck out second baseman DJ LeMahieu, the one batter he faced in his first major league appearance, to end the eighth. The Dodgers added Ravin, 27, to their roster after the first game of the doubleheader.
The Dodgers blew an early fourrun lead and fell behind 7-5 in the seventh when shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who came to the plate with just four homers in 176 plate appearances, hit a two-run shot over the center-field fence off Yimi Garcia.
The Rockies added a run in the eighth when catcher Nick Hundley, who went 3-for-4 with three runs and two RBIs, hit his second double of the game and scored when left fielder Brandon Barnes followed with a single.
“There’s so many hits here because the field’s so big and there’s so much ground to cover,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. “So it’s easy to get guys out there (on the bases), and once you get guys out there, stuff just happens.”
The Rockies spotted the Dodgers and Zack Greinke four early runs, hardly advisable since the right-hander brought a 5-1 record and a 1.48 ERA into the game. He gave up 10 hits and five runs, both season highs, in six innings and was in line to lose before the Dodgers tied the game at 5 with a run off Brooks Brown in the seventh.
Brown paid dearly for a leadoff walk to shortstop Jimmy Rollins, who scored on center fielder Joc Pederson’s two-out triple into the gap in right-center.
Three early homers off starter David Hale gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead. Second baseman Enrique Hernandez hit a solo shot in the first, Pederson added a solo homer in the third, and first baseman Adrian Gonzalez hit a two-run blast in the third.