Rockies 4, Dodgers 3: Justin Wrobleski makes All-Star case with 9 Ks, Shohei Ohtani hits 300th career homer, defense blows it late

Chad Moriyama 07/07/2026 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

After yesterday’s wild game, the Dodgers and Rockies played a similarly odd one tonight, though it only got that way late. For the most part it looked like a standard game thanks to Justin Wrobleski cruising and a Shohei Ohtani milestone homer, but the defense of the Dodgers imploded late and they missed a golden chance in the final inning for a 4-3 loss.

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Michael Lorenzen did not get any time to settle in before Shohei Ohtani was on his throat, as he smashed his third pitch to center for his 20th homer of the year and 300th for his career. He was congratulated by everybody in the dugout.

Andy Pages followed with an infield single and advanced to second on a throwing error, but he was stranded there to end the 1st.

Lorenzen cruised through the 2nd and 3rd, then worked around a lead-off and one-out single in the 4th thanks to a double play. The 5th was a mess, as a walk to Dalton Rushing was followed by an Alex Freeland single to corner things up, but Miguel Rojas bunted in a safety squeeze back to the pitcher and Rushing was out at home. Eric Karros was understandably not pleased.

Shohei followed with a walk to load things up, then Andy got another walk thanks to a lack of ABS challenges on two strikes that forced in a run, but a pop-out and flyout ended things without further damage.

Brutal.

They did add another against Lorenzen in the 6th, as Tommy Edman reached to start the inning on an error, then he stole second with one-out, and with two down a Freeland single drove him in for their third run of the night.

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Justin Wrobleski actually saw a lot of traffic tonight as his command wasn’t as sharp as it has been, but he figured out a way to make it work.

He started by navigating around a two-out walk in the 1st, then got a seven-pitch frame in the 2nd despite a HBP thanks to Rushing throwing a runner out.

Wrobo faced a real threat in the 3rd after a one-out single and walk, but he rebounded with a strikeout and then got a TJ Rumfield grounder that hit the runner for a “single” but also an inning-ending out.

Wrobo then got his first clean inning in the 4th, which he punctuated with a strikeout at 97 MPH as his velo continues to hold as a tick or two up.

Two more one-out singles hit in the 5th, but nothing came from those either, but in the 6th it was a one-out double and single that cornered the runners for a groundout from Jake McCarthy to end Wrobo’s shutout.

After he got the final out of the 6th, he came back with a clean 7th, punctuating his night with a strikeout (and Freeland made a highlight play).

Wrobo continues to make his All-Star case with results: 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 9 K, 94 Pitches.

Since his velo ticked up about six weeks ago, Wrobo has just been legitimately good. 2.22 ERA and low-3 peripherals with an above-average strikeout rate and elite K-BB%.

Unfortunately for him, the Dodgers defense didn’t have his or the pen’s back.

Will Klein started the 8th with a cardinal sin of walking the lead-off man, and then with one down gave up a single to put a pair on. Still, he looked like he got out of it when he induced a tailor-made double-play ball to Rojas, who subsequently whiffed on it for an error to score a run and resulted in the runners being cornered with still just one down.

Dave Roberts turned to Jack Dreyer, but McCarthy started with a safety squeeze that scored the tying run, and Max Muncy threw to Freeland covering first to record the second out. However, neither Miggy or Dreyer got over to cover third, so the runner that was on first broke for that bag and Freeland tried to hit a moving target for an error after it went into the dugout and thus scored the go-ahead run. 4-3 Rockies just like that.

Honestly man, the fact that this is the first game in a while I can remember them doing some bullshit like this is probably a good thing. They were doing this weekly for a stretch last year.

On a better note, Evan Phillips returned from injury in the 9th and looked as sharp as ever. His velocity was up two ticks from the last time we saw him, and he struck out the first two batters he faced before giving up a bloop single and getting the final out.

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Of course, the issue is the Dodgers offense remained quiet as all this was going on. Juan Mejia entered in the 7th for the Rockies and gave up just a single in two scoreless frames.

For the save, it was Jordan Romano in the 9th, and things started about as poorly as possible for him. Freeland singled then stole second, and he walked Teoscar Hernandez, who was pinch-hitting. That brought up Shohei, who chased the first pitch then missed a cookie on the second, and got popped up on the third. Brutal at-bat in that situation.

Pages didn’t do much better, hitting a shallow flyball on a 1-0 fastball for the second out. Freddie Freeman then fell behind 0-2 on two ABS overturns, then eventually struck out to end the game.

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60-33, a bad loss.

The series concludes tomorrow at 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PM PT/10:10 PM ET with Roki Sasaki looking to get straightened out against Ryan Feltner.

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