Dodgers’ bats turn cold during road loss to Colorado Rockies
DENVER — Nobody’s perfect, not even the Dodgers.
Their steamroll hit a speed bump as they squandered opportunities in Saturday’s 4-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.
Even the hottest of Dodgers’ hitters cooled off as the night did. Collectively, they went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base, including two in the ninth inning.
Now 15-5, it was their first loss in five games and their first all season to a National League opponent.
Kyle Tucker, the Dodgers’ pricey new right fielder, had three hits, including his third home run this season. And backup catcher Dalton Rushing hit his fifth home run.
But that was all the damage the Dodgers did in support of starter Emmet Sheehan, who left with a one-run lead that reliever Will Klein relinquished in a matter of three batters in the sixth inning.
Shohei Ohtani also saw his career-best on-base streak reach 50 when he singled in the ninth inning to tie Willie Keeler’s 50-game mark established in 1901.
The two-time reining World Series champs threw the proverbial first punch when Tucker launched a 435-foot two-run home run into the second deck, making it 2-0 two batters into the game.
Tucker’s third home run as a Dodger drove home Ohtani, who chopped the first pitch he saw to Troy Johnston and would have been out at first if not for the errant throw by the first baseman.
In the bottom of the first, the Rockies responded when Mickey Moniak doubled and TJ Rumfield drove him in with a single to cut the lead in half, 2-1.
Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing follows the flight of his solo home run off Colorado pitcher Ryan Feltner Saturday in Denver.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
The Dodgers came right back in the second inning, when Rushing — in his one expected start behind the plate this series — kept crushing, launching a 1-1 pitch 371 feet over the right field wall to make it 3-1. It was his fifth home run in 18 at-bats until that point.
The Dodgers’ two home runs in the first two innings gave them multiple homers in 10 of their first 20 games this season — and ran their MLB-leading season total to 37 as a team.
But the Rockies returned serve in the bottom of the second, when Johnston scored on a Kyle Karros sacrifice fly to stay within a run, 3-2.
That’s how it stayed for the next three innings, as Sheehan got out of the third and fourth unscathed, despite the Rockies putting runners in scoring position in both the third and fourth. His only 1-2-3 inning was the nine-pitch fifth.
His control wasn’t as sharp as in his prior outing, but he left after five innings with the lead, having thrown 77 pitches, allowed four hits, two runs, struck out four and walked two.
The Dodgers got something going again in the sixth inning when Freddie Freeman hit a one-out triple into the gap in the expansive Colorado outfield, just beyond the grasp of diving center fielder Brenton Doyle.
A batter later, the Rockies’ diving third baseman Karros made a nifty play to throw out Teoscar Hernández after he drilled a ball up the line — holding Freeman at third in the process.
Then left-hander Brennan Bernardino came on in relief and tied up a clearly frustrated Max Muncy with a curveball, striking him out and ending a scoreless inning with Freeman stranded on third.
Klein took the loss after taking over for the Dodgers in the sixth and immediately gave up a double to Hunter Goodman before Ezequiel Tovar’s grounder ricocheted off Klein’s left foot and right knee. Tovar reached before Freeman could corral the ball and get it to Klein at first.
Both runners scored on a no-out double by Johnston and Colorado had a 4-3 lead that would stand.
In the eighth, “Let’s go Dodgers” chants picked up with Andy Pages at bat and Ohtani and Tucker on first and second base. But Pages struck out on a strike that was determined to find the bottom of the zone by baseball’s new ABS system.
Hernández then walked to load the bases but Muncy grounded out to second base, leaving more runners stranded.
