Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Today is my birthday, and though what I would’ve wanted most is a nice, relaxing, comfortable win, the Dodgers did what they do best and made tonight as frustrating as humanly possible. And yet, in the end, Trayce Thompson played hero in the team’s 4-3 walk-off win against the Rockies.
Good lord was it a frustrating affair, though.
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Julio Urias made his third start of his career tonight after exiting his first two starts with an ERA of 9.39 while only making it through 7 2/3 innings. While he didn’t last much longer than usual today, getting only four innings on 86 pitches, he turned in by far his most impressive start of his young career. Urias struck out seven batters, walked only one, and limited the Rockies to three hits.
In the third inning, Urias allowed his only run of the game, though he didn’t exactly deserve that fate. With two outs and a runner on second, Nolan Arenado drilled a ball to deep left, but it was hit plenty high enough for a solid left fielder to make a catch. Unfortunately, Howie Kendrick is not a solid left fielder, and he basically gave up on trying to catch it before it hit off the middle of the wall for an RBI double.
Fortunately for the Dodgers, that run only cut the lead to 3-1, as the offense got off to a rare quick start, though that was mostly thanks to Rockies starter Eddie Butler. He started the game by issuing back-to-back walks to Chase Utley and Corey Seager, then got behind 2-0 to Justin Turner. The next pitch was a fastball right down the middle and Turner let me witness a miracle as he was on time and destroyed the pitch for a three-run homer to give the Dodgers an early lead.
Immediately after that, Adrian Gonzalez singled and Trayce Thompson walked … but the Dodgers didn’t get a run after a ground out and then a line out into a double play.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/740371415451324421
The Dodgers did their best to make that prediction come true, going silently in the next seven goddamn innings.
In the fifth, the Rockies started making moves on a comeback. Louis Coleman entered for Urias, and eventually the bases were loaded with one out after two walks with a double sandwiched between. Coleman then got Arenado to pop up and Adam Liberatore entered to get Carlos Gonzalez to strike out.
Apparently that was just warming them up for the seventh. After Joe Blanton got the sixth in clean fashion, he immediately surrendered a homer to Daniel Descalso (yes, really) to cut the lead to 3-2. After he struck out the next batter, Ryan Raburn singled to right, and then Arenado popped out to Seager in center field, and he prevented a hit by making a gem of a play. Unfortunately, Raburn ended up advancing to third after Seager was charged with a throwing error, basically because three veterans couldn’t be bothered to catch his perfect one-hop try to double off Raburn at first.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/740398806898999298
For whatever reason, Dave Roberts then turned to Pedro Baez, who is probably one of the worst relievers in the pen this year. Baez proceeded to give up a hot shot to second base, and Utley couldn’t handle it for an RBI single that tied the game at 3-3.
By some miracle, Baez got a clean eighth, and because the Dodgers were at home, Kenley Jansen was around to pitch a scoreless ninth.
That set it up for Thompson to play hero, and with two outs in the ninth he mercifully saved us from extra innings by taking an 0-1 fastball and drilling it over the left-field wall.
My hero.
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The Dodgers are now 32-28 overall and 17-13 at home.
Tomorrow night the Dodgers go for a series win against the Rockies, with the game starting at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST. The matchup will be Kenta Maeda against Chris Rusin, and I hope Maeda is ready to go deep in the game, because I think the bullpen is down to Casey Fien, Liberatore, and Jansen or something like that.
