DENVER — You don’t go 18-61 by accident.
The Dodgers scored six runs in the fourth inning, aided and abetted by the Colorado Rockies’ shortcomings, but had to hold on until the end of a 9-7 victory on Tuesday night at Coors Field.
The signature moment in this installment of a historically bad season for the Rockies came during that fourth inning.
Rockies first baseman Michael Toglia made two errors in the inning and a third defensive blunder – a poor throw home that went as a fielder’s choice rather than an error.
Toglia’s second error, though, managed to bring Rockies starter German Marquez to the ground. The right-hander apparently rolled his ankle watching Toglia misplay the grounder, making his move to cover first base a wasted effort.
The Rockies went into that inning leading 2-0, Marquez having retired nine of the first 11 Dodgers batters.
But Toglia (who had three doubles on the other side of the ball) whiffed on Freddie Freeman’s ground ball to start the fourth inning. Back-to-back singles by Will Smith and Max Muncy loaded the bases. One run scored on a ground out, another on Toglia’s ill-advised decision to throw home on another ground ball.
That brought up Michael Conforto, who had doubled in his first at-bat. He golfed a Marquez curveball 420 feet down the right-field line for a three-run home run. It was Conforto’s first multi-hit game since May 27, his first game with more than one extra-base hit since May 13 and his first multi-RBI game in 69 games as a Dodger.
With his .165 batting average, just two hits in his previous 23 at-bats and playing time slowly slipping to Hyeseong Kim – nobody needed a visit to Coors Field more than Conforto.
Mookie Betts wasn’t far behind, and Betts emerged from a 6-for-37 slide with his first multi-hit game since June 7 in St. Louis (including an RBI double in the six-run fourth).
Shohei Ohtani piled on with a two-run home run in the sixth inning. It was his 27th home run of the season, tops in the National League.
That should have been more than enough for the pitching collective the Dodgers used to stitch together nine innings. Left-hander Justin Wrobleski was the biggest piece, following Jack Dreyer’s one inning with five effective innings of his own.
Wrobleski allowed two runs on five hits while striking out a career-high seven with a fastball trending up in velocity. He averaged 95.3 mph Tuesday (topping out at 99.5 mph), a 1.3 mph bump from his previous season average. He got seven of his 14 swings-and-misses with the fastball.
Wrobleski has settled into this ‘bulk’ role. He allowed 12 runs on 14 hits including three home runs over 11 innings in his two starts with the Dodgers this season, but he has allowed just four earned runs in 18⅓ innings when pitching out of the bullpen.
But things got Coors-y after Wrobleski left the scene. The Rockies scored once in the seventh inning off Kirby Yates then three times in the eighth off Anthony Banda and Tanner Scott, briefly making it a one-run game, 8-7.
Teoscar Hernandez opened it up a little with an RBI double in the top of the ninth but the Rockies still got the tying run to the plate before Scott closed it out in the bottom of the ninth.
More to come on this story.