DENVER — When the Dodgers arrived in Colorado on Sunday night they had a golden opportunity to pad their narrow division lead against with the worst team in the majors.
The best the Dodgers could do was hold serve, needing Thursday’s 9-5 win over the Rockies to earn a split of the four-game series and send them on to San Diego for this weekend’s crucial series with the second-place Padres.
The Dodgers, who scored 20 runs on 30 hits in their two wins at Coors Field and six runs on 14 hits in their two losses, struck early in Thursday’s matinee, with Mookie Betts opening the game by walking on five pitches. Freddie Freeman followed with a two-run homer run, his 16th of the season, to center field.
The Rockies got one of those back runs in the bottom on the inning. Leadoff hitter Tyler Freeman was credited with a single when second baseman Miguel Rojas lost his popup in the high midday sky, was sacrificed to second, took third on a balk, then scored on Hunter Goodman’s ground out
Colorado would get no closer.
The Dodgers extended their lead in the second when Andy Pages doubled with one out and continued to third when Freeman let the ball get by him in the right-field corner. After a walk to Alex Call, Rojas reached on a bunt, scoring Pages. A Betts single then loaded the bases and an out later Will Smith was hit by a pitch, forcing in a run.
By the time the inning ended, the Dodgers led 4-1 and Colorado starter Chase Dollander had thrown 58 pitches. But the Dodgers were far from done, adding a run in the third and two in the fourth to end the afternoon for Dollander (2-10).
Alex Freeland started the third with his first career triple before scoring on Call’s two-out, two-strike single to left while singles by Betts and Freeman, a scoring fly ball from Michael Conforto and an RBI double from Freeland pushed the led to 7-1.
Pages continued the Dodgers’ streak of scoring in each of the first five innings, driving reliever Nick Anderson’s first pitch of the fifth into the left-field bleachers for his 21st homer of the season. Smith then closed out his team’s scoring in the eighth, driving in Buddy Kennedy with a two-out single.
Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw, meanwhile, hit just a couple of bumps in winning for the eighth time in 10 decisions. In the fourth he gave up a run on a one-out single by Goodman, a double by Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle’s sacrifice fly. And in the sixth, a two-out walk to Goodman and consecutive singles by Beck and Doyle drove him from the game.
It was his earliest exit of the month. In his last four outings, all wins, Kershaw has allowed five runs over 23 2/3 innings.
Colorado tacked on two runs off reliever Matt Sauer in the eighth on a lead-out single from pinch hitter Yanquiel Fernández’s and Doyle’s 13th home run of the season an out later.
Four Dodgers finished with multiple hits led by Freeland, who was a season-best three for five with a run scored and another driven in. Freeland had six hits in the final three games in Denver.
Betts was two for three with two walks and two runs scored while Freeman, who was two for five, upped his season average to .303 and is hitting .328 for August. Shohei Ohtani, who sat out Thursday’s game, is the only Dodger with a better average this month.
Roki Sasaki update
Dodger manager Dave Roberts said right-hander Roki Sasaki made progress in his second rehab start Wednesday, going 3 1/3 innings and giving up two runs (one earned) on three hits. He walked three and struck out two before leaving after 60 pitches.
“He got into the fourth inning, and it was certainly better than his first one,” Roberts said.
Sasaki will make another rehab start next week before the Dodgers make any decision on his role in September. The team had talked about using Sasaki in a relief role.
Hours after making his Dodger debut, right-hander Paul Gervase was optioned to make room on the roster for right-hander Sauer. Gervase pitched two innings against Colorado on Thursday, allowing a run on two hits with two strikeouts. He was acquired on July 31 from the Tampa Bay Rays in the three-team trade. Sauer, 26, returns for his fifth stint with the team.
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