Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
A rough outing for Walker Buehler, his second shortest of the season at 3 2/3 innings (only ahead of his 3 innings against the Giants on Sept. 5), spoiled the Dodgers’ three-run lead, and an error/collision to open the 7th by Alex Vesia cascaded into four unearned runs. While the team was already trailing by one before Vesia’s error/collision with Charlie Blackmon, which preceded an RBI double and a three-run homer by Sam Hilliard, those four runs just about put the game away for the Rockies in the 10-5 win.
With the loss, the Dodgers’ path to the NL West title obviously gets more challenging as the Giants lead the Padres 3-1 in the 6th as I hit publish on this. That leaves the Dodgers in danger of falling two games back with just 10 games to play.
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Recording just two singles and a walk through the first three innings against German Marquez, the Dodgers finally put together some offense in the 4th.
Singling with one out in the inning, Justin Turner eventually came around to score two batters later thanks to a wild pitch and a double by Gavin Lux. Leading 1-0, Luke Raley made it 3-0 one pitch later as he sent a fastball 472 feet to center.
Unfortunately the Rockies put up five in the bottom of the 4th, with Brendan Rodgers hitting a solo shot to open the inning. Rodgers was the first of five Rockies to reach against Buehler, as four straight singles ultimately tied the game at 3-3. Buehler nearly escaped with the tie intact, but Marquez doubled to right center with two away to give himself a 5-3 lead … that lasted just six more batters in the game.
Marquez allowed four straight Dodgers to reach to start the 5th, the final two on walks with Max Muncy‘s forcing home Mookie Betts, wrapping up his day.
Entering into a bases loaded situation with no outs, Robert Stephenson did escape with a tie. Turner’s fly ball to Blackmon did score Corey Seager, but Trea Turner was caught just off second doing … something. After four straight reached, the Rockies wrapped up the inning in just two more batters thanks to the double play and Will Smith‘s strikeout.
That was a wrap to the Dodgers’ offense for the night as they managed just two base runners in the final four innings. Trevor Story‘s RBI single off of Justin Bruihl in the 5th ended up as the game-winning run, while the four unearned runs against Vesia basically put it out of reach.
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Max Scherzer faces Kyle Freeland in the series finale scheduled for 12:10 p.m. on Thursday. That will wrap up the Dodgers’ season series with the Rockies and should be Scherzer’s penultimate start of the regular season as he lines up with a potential Wild Card game.
