Rocky road.
For the most part, playing away from home has been great for the Colorado Rockies this year, at 19-12 on the season, but on Tuesday night, they lost all that momentum and their five-game winning streak at Dodgers stadium in a 5-3 loss to LA.
Chad Bettis started slowly for the Rocks, giving up two runs in the first inning alone. Justin Turner hit a ground-rule double and then scored when Matt Kemp singled. Cody Bellinger then doubled, and Bettis walked the bases loaded and walked home a run to give LA the 2-0 lead early.
But, Bettis bounced back in the second, striking out two and he continued to roll with ground outs and strikeouts all night long. He pitched five innings, giving up three hits with four strikeouts. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the win as the Dodgers tied the game up the next inning after he was pulled.
The Rockies got those two runs back relatively quickly; Ian Desmond homered in the top of the second and Nolan Arenado came through with two outs, scoring Charlie Blackmon from second base in the third inning. That tied the game up at 2-2.
The game stayed knotted at 2-2 until the sixth inning when Desmond — the worst hitting player on the team — came through yet again. After his huge home run early in the game, his one-out hit to right sent Trevor Story home after Story stole second and there was a passed ball while Carlos Gonzalez was batting, which sent Story to third. That was the third run of the game for Colorado, taking their first lead of the game at 3-2 in the sixth.
But the sixth inning was prosperous for the Dodgers, too, as Brian Shaw came in after Bettis and gave up a two-run homer to Chris Taylor and then Yasiel Puig knocked a ball out of the park, too. 5-3, the Dodgers led through six.
With the loss, the Rockies fell to 26-23, one game ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks for first in the NL West. Wednesday night’s game not only will decide the series, as it’s now tied 1-1, but it will also decide whether or not the Rockies nine-game road trip is a winner or a loser. Colorado currently sits at 4-4 against San Diego (1-1), San Francisco (2-2) and now LA (1-1). That game’s first pitch is 8:10 p.m. MT.
