DENVER — The Dodgers’ 6-4 win in 10 innings against the Rockies on Wednesday completed a three-game sweep of the last-place team in the National League West.
The trip to hitter-friendly Mile High City came at the perfect time for the Dodgers, ending a collective slump. Now, the Dodgers just have to find a way to carry the momentum back to Los Angeles.
The bottom half of the Dodgers’ batting order got the scoring started in the second inning with a trio of singles.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had pondered sitting slumping Kyle Tucker on Wednesday, but was rewarded for deciding otherwise. Tucker got his two-for-five day (his first multi-hit game in over two weeks, which included two sharp lineouts) started with a sharp grounder into right field that moved Mookie Betts to third. Then Kiké Hernández drove him in.
“I liked Kyle’s energy [Tuesday],” Roberts said before the game. “I think the easy thing for me to do is to not play him. But for me, what I can do, a way of showing support, is by playing him. And there are days where I feel like he needs a day, but I think that Kyle’s in a good headspace. I want him to play tonight. And I think he gives us the best chance to win.”
Two innings later, Betts and Hernández homered to give the Dodgers a 4-0 lead.
Then with two out, and Shohei Ohtani ready to step up to the plate, Kyle Freeland headed for the dugout with an athletic trainer. The Rockies later announced he’d left the game with neck tightness.
Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki, whom the team had fly in on Tuesday to combat the physical effects of the altitude, held the Rockies to two runs through five innings.
Of the seven hits he gave up, four were doubles into Coors Field’s expansive outfield. That included a two-run knock from Adael Amador in the fourth inning. Left fielder Teoscar Hernández took an awkward route to the deep line drive, which flew just out of reach as he tried to change directions.
Sasaki escaped earlier damage when catcher Ben Rortvedt helped get him out of a first-and-third situation in the second inning with a perfect toss to second to throw out Brett Sullivan on an attempted steal.
The two teams’ bullpens traded scoreless innings until the seventh inning, when Dodgers left-hander Alex Vesia issued a two-out walk to Jake McCarthy and then gave up a two-run homer to Mickey Moniak to tie the score.
Then in the ninth, Rockies closer Jordan Romano set down a formidable trio of Max Muncy, Ohtani and Andy Pages, in order.
Dodgers right-hander Kyle Hurt took the mound and appeared to turn in a clean inning of his own, but the Rockies successfully challenged the third out call, awarding McCarthy an infield single. No matter — Hurt struck out Moniak to send the game into extra innings.
Against Rockies right-hander Jimmy Herget in the 10th inning, with an automatic runner on second base, the Dodgers pulled ahead 6-4.
Teoscar Hernández moved Pages from second to third with a short line drive into left. Freddie Freeman drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly. And Betts’ RBI single added an insurance run. Betts applauded as he retreated to first base, seeing Hernández had scored from second.
Then Dodgers lefty Tanner Scott, back in the closer role since Edwin Díaz landed on the IL Tuesday, had his second save in as many nights. He turned in a three-up, three-down 10th inning.
Good news for Edwin Díaz
The imaging Dodgers closer Díaz underwent in Los Angeles on Wednesday morning revealed a “best-case scenario,” Roberts said before the series finale against the Rockies.
“There were no findings, so that was good,” Roberts said. “MRI was clean. It doesn’t change the fact that he had this sensation in his neck. But I think to keep working on it, give it some rest as far as throwing the baseball.”
Díaz officially went on the IL for “neck inflammation,” but early theories on the injury, before he went to a specialist on Wednesday, suggested the issue could be related to the area around the trapezius, according to a person with knowledge of the situation.
Roberts said Wednesday that the results suggested the injury was more muscular, rather than nerve related.
“I think he’d been feeling the tightness in his neck,” Roberts said. “But I think where it went to the other night, he hadn’t felt that sensation. So that’s what really checked him up.”
Roberts said he didn’t know exactly how long Díaz would be shut down from throwing, but he estimated that it probably would be only a couple of days.
The bullpen shuffle continued Wednesday, when the Dodgers activated right-hander Brock Stewart (right shoulder discomfort) from the 15-day IL. In a corresponding move, they designated right-hander Jonathan Hernández for assignment.
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