The Colorado Rockies wasted a strong pitching performance from starting pitcher Jorge De La Rosa and dropped the first of a six-game road trip to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night by a final of 5-0. De La Rosa allowed just two runs on five hits in seven innings of work, but it was all for naught as the Rockies offense was held scoreless by opposing starter Bud Norris in his Dodgers debut.
The starting pitchers combined to allow just one single in the first three innings before Los Angeles got on the board in the fourth. Chase Utley led off the inning with a walk and came around to score on a pair of singles from Corey Seager and Adrian Gonzalez to make it 1-0, Dodgers.
That score held until the seventh when the Dodgers picked up an insurance run on a pair of singles, an ugly passed ball, and a run scoring balk. It would’ve been worse if not for a perfect throw by Brandon Barnes in left field that cut down Yasiel Puig at the plate. Nevertheless, the Dodgers two-run lead after seven was more than enough.
That, however, did not prevent the Dodgers from scoring even more. In the eighth, they tacked on three more that were all charged to reliever Gonzalez Germen. The 28-year-old saw his ERA spike to 4.85 on the season, but it’s a much uglier 11.05 over his past nine appearances that have seen him walk eight and strike out just five.
As is often the case, offense was tough to come by for the Rockies in their first game on the road after a long home stand. They had just three hits and struck out 12 times. Only four times did a Rockies hitter even reach second base (once was on defensive indifference with two outs in the ninth). Never in the game did the offense have something resembling a real threat. They’ll look to get back on track tomorrow with the hopeful returns of DJ LeMahieu and/or Trevor Story to the starting lineup.
The loss drops the Rockies to 37-42 on the season while the Dodgers improved to 45-37. Game two of the series is tomorrow night at 8:10 pm mountain time. Chad Bettis takes the bump for the Rockies against Scott Kazmir of the Dodgers.