mookie

Mookie Betts’ first hit this series against the Rockies couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. With the crack of the ball against his bat, Tommy Edman scored from third, giving the Dodgers the lead.

And as Betts reached first, he pointed to Freddie Freeman, whose single put Edman in scoring position. It had taken a team effort to overcome another middling start from Roki Sasaki, and Betts, who had little to show before his game-winning hit, took the chance to highlight the joint contribution in the Dodgers’ 4-3 rubber-match win over Colorado (38-56).

“It feels great,” Betts said of his nine-pitch battle. “Helping the boys win, that’s really all it is. We play the game to win, and coming through in a big moment is kind of what, when you’re a kid, playing in the backyard, getting that hit is what you always strive to do, and fortunately, I was able to do it.”

Given a three-run lead in the first inning, brought to the Dodgers by a wild pitch and Kyle Tucker’s two-run, line-drive single to left field, Sasaki seemed set up for success.

Still, he gave away the lead as quickly as it came. In the second inning, he left a fastball too far over the plate, and third baseman Kyle Karros drove the ball over the left-center wall. The slider he dealt two batters later to second baseman Edouard Julien also crossed the zone too far over the plate, and Julien rounded the bases with another homer. In the third, a sacrifice fly by Mickey Moniak evened the scored, 3-3.

Sasaki’s troubles this season have been hard to pin down since his last win on May 23, as Sasaki tries to claw back the triple-digit velocity that’s escaped him as of late.

Against the Rockies, his fastball topped out at 99.1 miles per hour before steadily dropping to 98. He had managed five strikeouts in his six innings when manager Dave Roberts replaced him with Jack Dreyer, though the three earned runs couldn’t be ignored.

But Roberts also acknowledged the possibility that the pitcher had been tipping his pitches, possibly since he was playing in Japan, and Sasaki has tried to address it after a three-inning, six-run start last week. Even if he had fully self-corrected, his control issues remain. In the third inning, he walked the tying runner, Brett Sullivan.

“I’ve been working on a lot of things like the tipping stuff,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. “Also, I need to make quality pitches.”

Sasaki regained some of his confidence in the fourth when he worked out of a two-base jam with two strikeouts and a flyball to right, something that didn’t go unnoticed by Roberts.

“You can see the demeanor walking off the mound, the confidence,” Roberts said. “For me, it was more of let him end on a high note, feeling good about his outing, and then go from there.”

The Dodgers’ problems were compounded by Alex Call wasting the team’s two challenges in his at-bat in the first inning when the team had already taken the lead. And maybe it would’ve been excusable if Call had driven in the runners on first and second, but instead he ended the inning on a strikeout, stranding both. Roberts called the situation an “outlier” and didn’t feel as though he needed to have a conversation with Call regarding the situation.

After the three-run first, the Dodgers (61-33) remained hitless until Max Muncy laced a double down the right-field line in the sixth, though to little avail. As the innings ticked forward, Colorado’s chances seemed to increase. The Rockies hold the best league batting average (.297) in the eighth and ninth innings (the Dodgers are fourth with .268). And the Dodgers relievers, within the same constraints, have a 3.83 ERA — not bad, but not in the top 10 either.

Third baseman Max Muncy can’t get his glove on a line-drive double by Kyle Karros in the fourth inning.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

So when Alex Vesia struggled against the Rockies in the eighth inning and Muncy suffered a throwing error, Colorado seemed in position to score with the bases loaded and one out. Vesia struck out TJ Rumfield and Edgardo Henriquez (4-0), his replacement, retired Karros on a fly ball to right.

After Betts’ single allowed the Dodgers to take the lead, Tanner Scott (13) shut down the Rockies with back-to-back strikeouts, avoiding the team’s eighth series loss of the season.

“Didn’t feel great,” Roberts said. “Fortunately, we won a series, but that’s not the kind of way you want to do it.”

All the Dodgers had to do was stay patient.

In a 15-2 win Saturday against the Angels in Anaheim, the Dodgers offense wasn’t able to gain much of a lead until the sixth inning. Then six consecutive free passes spurred an offensive explosion that put the game away.

In fact, Will Smith’s first-inning sacrifice fly scored the only run for either team through the first five innings, as the starting pitchers — Dodgers lefty Justin Wrobleski and Angels right-hander José Soriano — dueled.

Though the Dodgers scored first, Soriano avoided traffic on the bases more effectively than Wrobleski. That is, until Soriano lost command in the sixth.

Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski throws to the plate during a win over the Angels Saturday at Angel Stadium.

(Mark J. Terrill / Ap Photo/mark J. Terrill)

With one out in the sixth inning, Mookie Betts got the Dodgers’ rally started by drawing a five-pitch walk. Freddie Freeman followed suit and Smith wore a curveball to load the bases.

Soriano, who had only allowed one hit, didn’t regain his footing. He walked in two runs before being lifted. And then his replacement, Angels reliever Chase Silseth, hit Teoscar Hernández to bring in a third run for the Dodgers before they logged a hit in the inning.

Alex Call, the eighth Dodgers hitter to step up to the plate in the sixth, finally delivered the only knock of the rally, a two-run single on a ground ball through the left side of the infield.

The strong Dodgers fan presence at a sold-out Angel Stadium made itself known in the eighth inning when Shohei Ohtani drove a two-run triple into the right-field corner, raced to third as it bounced up and off the netting and then scored on a throwing error.

“MVP” chants broke out from the fans clad in blue.

They let out a roar shortly after, when Betts launched a solo homer to left.

The Dodgers continued the barrage in the ninth, scoring on pitcher Alek Manoah’s errant throw that past second base, Hernández’ sharp single up the third-base line and Ohtani’s bases-clearing double into the right-field corner.

That earned more “MVP” chants.

The Dodgers, one day removed from scratching left-hander Blake Snell and pivoting to a bullpen game on Friday, needed Wrobleski to give their relievers a breather.

The Dodgers’ bats ultimately helped take pressure off all the team’s pitchers.