LOS ANGELES — Defense is one of our strengths, Dave Roberts told a group of students from USC, getting to question the Dodgers manager before Tuesday night’s game.
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Maybe it was the unhealthy karma of a Bruin interacting with a group of Trojans, but the Dodgers did not back up Roberts’ words.
Two errors on the infield helped fuel a three-run eighth inning as the Colorado Rockies came from behind against the Dodgers’ bullpen for the second night in a row. This time, the National League West’s last-place team took the lead and held it through a rocky ninth inning, beating the Dodgers, 4-3.
The sloppy eighth inning made a mess of a feel-good night featuring Shohei Ohtani hitting his 300th career home run and Justin Wrobleski further emphasizing his worthiness of an All-Star selection.
Ohtani wasted no time making his history. He ripped the third pitch he saw from Rockies starter Michael Lorenzen on a line 409 feet over the wall in straightaway center field.
The march to 300 turned into a bullet train over the past two days. The first five balls put in play by Ohtani in the series against the Rockies left his bat with exit velocities of 111.8 mph (a line out Monday), 105.9 mph (home run No. 299), 91.4 mph (a single), 105.8 mph (another single) and 112.8 mph (home run No. 300). Even his fly out in his second at-bat Tuesday qualified as a hard-hit ball by Statcast standards, leaving his bat at 99.4 mph.
Using games in which they had at least one plate appearance as the measure (per Elias Sports), Ohtani reached 300 home runs faster (1,101 games) than all but four players in MLB history – Aaron Judge (953 games), Ralph Kiner (1,086), Ryan Howard (1,091) and Juan Gonzalez (1,093).
But Ohtani stands alone as the first player in major-league history to collect 300 home runs and 100 stolen bases in his first nine seasons.
The Dodgers added a second run in the fifth inning when Lorenzen walked three batters, including Andy Pages with the bases loaded. Lorenzen was his own worst enemy in the sixth inning as well, committing an error on a play at first base. Two outs later, Alex Freeland cashed it in with an RBI single.
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That was enough support for Wrobleski, who breezed through the Rockies’ lineup most of the night.
He allowed just one hit in the first four innings but got a break when TJ Rumfield’s ground ball to the right side hit the baserunner for an out. Wrobleski did the work himself in the fifth inning, giving up a bloop single and an infield single with one out then striking out Willi Castro and getting Kyle Karros on a fly out.
The Rockies got to him for a run in the sixth inning but that was all the damage they could manage against Wrobleski, whose ERA for the season (including one relief appearance) dropped to 2.69, eighth-lowest in the National League – all seven pitchers ahead of him on that list have been named to the All-Star team.
Wrobleski went seven innings for the third consecutive start and the seventh time in his 15 starts, striking out nine along the way.
But Will Klein walked Karros to start the eighth inning and gave up a one-out single to Cole Carrigg. Tyler Freeman’s ground ball to shortstop Miguel Rojas (giving Mookie Betts a day off) could have been the second out, but Rojas misplayed it for an error. Karros scored to make it a one-run game.
Jake McCarthy followed with a sacrifice bunt that scored Carrigg. When Alex Freeland (covering first base) tried to throw back across the diamond to get Freeman at third, his throw was wild. The second error of the inning allowed Freeman to score the go-ahead run.
The Dodgers were able to answer back and win on Dalton Rushing’s walk-off single in the 11th inning on Monday night. They put the first two runners on in the bottom of the ninth on Tuesday, but Rockies reliever Jordan Romano (released by the Angels earlier this season) got Ohtani on a broken-bat pop-up, Pages on a shallow fly to right field and struck out Freddie Freeman.
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More to come on this story.