One night after having an unusually quite offensive performance at Coors Field, the Los Angeles Dodgers rebounded with a relatively comfortable 9-4 victory over the Colorado Rockies to become the first team to 70 wins this season.
Kristopher Negrón made his Dodgers debut, Tyler White was in the lineup for the first time, and both contributed. They combined to go 2-for-7 with three RBI, with one of those coming on Negrón’s solo home run in the second inning.
That was part of the Dodgers getting to Rockies starter Kyle Freeland and scoring at least two runs in each of the first four innings.
A.J. Pollock gave the Dodgers a lead on the second pitch of the game by lofting a home run over the fence in left field. Cody Bellinger added an RBI single, and a throwing error on an attempted double play allowed a third run to cross in the first inning.
Negrón’s home run in the second was followed by Russell Martin also lifting an opposite-field shot to give the Dodgers back-to-back home runs. White’s two-run single came in the third inning, and Justin Turner made up for having a fly ball caught at the wall with a drive that went into the stands in left-center field in the fourth inning.
Despite being spotted an early lead, Julio Urias struggled in his first start since June 29. The Rockies put two on in the first inning and started the second with consecutive singles from Ian Desmond and Ryan McMahon. Urias managed to escape the trouble both times, though failed to get through the third inning.
A one-out triple by David Dahl later led to Nolan Arenado getting the Rockies on the board with a double, which was followed by an RBI single from Daniel Murphy. Alex Verdugo may have had a play at the plate but the ball took a tricky hop and got by him.
Urias was removed after just 2.2 innings and 61 pitches. Casey Sadler allowed an RBI double to Ian Desmond immediately upon taking over, with the run getting charged to Urias.
Sadler and the Dodgers bullpen as a whole otherwise had an encouraging night. Tony Gonsolin made just his second appearance with the Dodgers and erased some of the sting from a tough-luck MLB debut by completing a four-inning save.
Gonsolin nearly did so in perfect fashion, but allowed a pair of two-out singles and an RBI double in the ninth to snap his string of consecutive batters retired at 11.
