Dodgers 1 Rockies 6: Wrong Side of a One-Hitter

The Dodgers dropped game one against the Rockies as the pitching dug a hole in the middle innings.

When I saw the lineup for today’s game, I didn’t have the highest hopes. Justin Turner, who probably shouldn’t be hitting third, hit leadoff. That, plus Mike Bolsinger on the hill, didn’t make me a very optimistic person. Unfortunately, my concerns were valid.

Longtime Dodger killer Gerardo Parra opened up the scoring with a homer to right, but the Dodgers answered that with a walk, a single and a fielders’ choice. Bolsinger did a decent job against the Rockies the first two times through the lineup, but as the book reads for Bolsinger, he got hit hard the third time around.

Bolsinger had given up an RBI single in the fifth, but was solid for the most part and had a low pitch count. The third time through the lineup, Bolsinger gave up a leadoff walk, sac bunt and a single to Nolan Arenado. Absolutely nothing to be ashamed of there, as Arenado is an incredible baseball player. On the single, Trayce Thompson tried throwing home and missed the cutoff man, which allowed Arenado to advance to second. Bolsinger intentionally walked Carlos Gonzalez to get to Trevor Story, who predictably hit a three run bomb to end Bolsinger’s night.

It’s tough to put all the blame on Bolsinger, as the offense was quiet all game. They only managed one hit through eight innings off Tyler Chatwood, who has easily been the Rockies’ best pitcher this season. It’s one thing for the offense to have to come back from a small deficit, as they’ve been doing of late. However, they can’t be expected to come back from five runs down. It would help if they could score early, but this was definitely one of those late-April games where nothing went right for the Dodgers. They didn’t hit the ball hard very often. When they did, it was either a deep fly out or a hit in Arenado’s direction, which is basically an automatic out. Pitching was bad, offense was bad.

Not to excuse the offense, but Chatwood has been incredible away from the pitchers’ hell known as Coors Field. In 33.2 road innings coming into today’s game, Chatwood allowed 23 hits and two earned runs. He owns a 5.30 ERA at Coors, but 0.53 on the road. He allowed two hits in seven innings at Wrigley against the Cubs in April and allowed three hits in San Diego in May, so the Dodgers aren’t the only team to struggle against Chatwood at home (TRADE FOR HIM). This wasn’t one of those games where the Dodgers get shut down but Cesar Freaking Vargas, give Chatwood some credit here.

The night wasn’t all bad. Casey Fien continued to look like a steal, as he allowed a single but got through the top of the Rockies’ lineup. Chris Hatcher also threw a 1-2-3 eighth and J.P. Howell followed suit in the ninth, so the bullpen continued to look good, albeit in a pretty low leverage situation. Vin Scully was also on fire with his D-Day stories, so at least the game was entertaining in some way.

The Giants had a night off, so the Dodgers had a chance to cut their NL West lead to three, but instead it grew to four. The two teams play this weekend in San Francisco, so that lead could potentially shrink or grow a lot. The Dodgers have two more with the Rockies and the Giants host the Boston Red Sox, so this should be a good opportunity for the Dodgers to make up ground entering the series.

Next: Ranking the Top-36 Draft Prospects

Julio Urias makes his Dodger Stadium debut tomorrow night against Eddie Butler. The Rockies have a very good lineup, but hopefully Urias fares better against them than he did against the Mets and Cubs.