ROCKIES FALL, SPLIT SERIES WITH DODGERS
Colorado settles for split of four-game set after L.A. scores six in sixth A blueprint for defeat: Just four-plus innings from starting pitcher Chi Chi Gonzalez, a really bad outing from middle reliever Chad Bettis, and the powerful Dodgers in the visitin
Final score: Dodgers 10, Rockies 5 in a nine-inning game that took 4 hours, 1 minute to complete.
After the game, manager Bud Black was asked to sum up the state of his ballclub as it nears the all-star break. What he said about the pitching can be applied not just to the season in general but to Sunday in particular.
“The second half, we are hoping for better results,” he said. “We have to get some things in order on the pitching side. On any given night, we have 13 pitchers and we need a number of guys — double-digit guys — pitching well. We can’t have ‘a guy pitch good, a guy pitch bad.’ We need consistent pitching from our rotation and our bullpen.”
Colorado’s hopes of a series win
against the National League West’s runaway leaders vanished into a less-than-satisfying 2-2 split. The Dodgers (57-29) lead the Rockies (44-40) by 12 games.
“It was all right, but we wanted to win a series against them and show better than we did today,” admitted David Dahl, the newly minted all-star outfielder.
Colorado’s four-run fifth inning, featuring a two-run homer by Dahl, was quickly erased by a sixrun Dodgers sixth in which they sent 11 men to the plate, scoring six runs on five hits off Bettis. The veteran right-hander also plunked Justin Turner with the bases loaded to force in a run. All of that in just one-third of an inning.
And this wasn’t a Coors Field special. The Dodgers ripped off a series of hard-hit balls off Bettis, including a two-run single by Joc Pederson and run-scoring double by Matt Beaty.
Black said the reason he stuck with Bettis so long was that a number of pitchers in Colorado’s taxed bullpen were unavailable and he was hoping to get two innings out of Bettis.
“When we took the lead, we felt pretty good about Chad and thought he could pitch the sixth and seventh,” Black said. “The ball was elevated a little bit for Chad today.”
L.A.’s patient lineup didn’t roast Gonzalez, who was making his second start for Colorado, but it drove up his pitch count in a hurry. Gonzalez was up to 86 pitches when Black gave him the hook in the fifth inning after he gave up two runs, faced four batters and didn’t record an out. His final line: four innings, three runs, five hits, two walks and two strikeouts. His ERA: 6.00.
It was left to right-hander Carlos Estevez to clean up the fifth inning. He did, stranding two while retiring Beatty, Chris Taylor and Cody Bellinger. But the game fell apart in the sixth, when the Dodgers rocked Bettis.
Colorado right fielder Charlie Blackmon, going to the All-Star Game for the fourth time, hit a solo home run to right field in the ninth inning, his 20th homer of the season.
The Rockies are off Monday before beginning a two-game series at Coors Field on Tuesday against the Houston Astros.