The Dodgers re-asserted the parameters for their relationship with the Rockies on Tuesday.
A night after the Rockies walked-off Los Angeles to snap a 10-game losing streak against the NL West juggernauts in a performance in which Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said his team “let our guard down,” Los Angeles crushed Colorado 11-4 at Coors Field.
Colorado, ever the little brother to the boys in blue, hasn’t won consecutive games in a single season against the Dodgers since October 2022. And the Rockies haven’t won two in a row against L.A. at Coors Field since about three months before that. Los Angeles has now won the season series against Colorado for eight straight years.
The Dodgers showed their dominance over Colorado on Tuesday by pummeling Austin Gomber. L.A. lit up the southpaw for seven runs on nine hits and two walks in a season-low three innings for him. The parade of hard-hit balls featured a pair of solo homers in the second inning, first by leadoff Alex Call and then Shohei Ohtani’s 44th blast this season a few batters later.
After the performance, Gomber admitted he feels “a little bit lost out there right now.”
“I don’t really have any confidence or conviction,” Gomber said. “I don’t really have an identity of what I’m trying to do … and I’m just searching as I go. It’s a tough place to be, out there trying to figure out what’s going to work on the fly.”
In between those two bombs by Call and Ohtani that traveled a combined 866 feet, Los Angeles also plated two runs in the first and three runs in the third. All five of those runs came with two outs.
“Missed locations came back and undid him,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer said of Gomber. “He had a tough time getting inside (on hitters).”
In the first, a two-out walk to Will Smith opened the door for RBI doubles by Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández. Then in the third, Call, Miguel Rojas and Buddy Kennedy all notched RBI singles to extend the lead to 7-0.
Gomber’s ERA now stands at 7.49. He remains winless in ’25, and is the only pitcher in the majors this season to have 12 or more starts with no quality outings. The rest of the rotation hasn’t been any better: After Gomber’s outing on Tuesday, the ERA of Colorado starters is 6.59. The club record for highest starters’ ERA is 6.19, set in 1999 before the humidor came to Coors Field.
“It sucks to let the team down, and more specifically the bullpen, because they needed more length than that,” Gomber said. “I just couldn’t provide it.”
The Rockies offense finally woke up in the fourth as Brenton Doyle mashed a two-run homer to left-center off Emmet Sheehan to cut the deficit to 7-2.
That continued the center fielder’s hot second half. Entering the game, Doyle was slashing .387/.418/.587. He has the third-highest batting average in the majors since the All-Star break, and the fifth-highest OPS (1.004) among players with at least 80 plate appearances.
In the sixth, the Rockies cut into the lead again with another two-run homer. This time, two rookies who have impressed since debuting in the last month combined to get to Sheehan again. Warming Bernabel walked, then two batters later, Kyle Karros mashed his first career homer 381 feet into the left-field bleachers to make it 7-4.
Karros’ blast came with his dad, former Dodgers star Eric Karros, in the stands… somewhere. The younger Karros struck out twice before homering.
“He was switching up seats (for my at-bats) — I think he ended up in the nosebleeds,” Karros said of his dad. “He was trying out everything. He played the game, he knows how superstitions work. He sent me photos from all over (the ballpark). I think he found the lucky spot (in the sixth).
“I was in a two-strike count just trying to battle, and then I barreled it … rounding second or third, I was looking (for my dad) and I didn’t find him, probably because he was in the nosebleeds. He definitely crossed my mind. He was there for my debut, and now here again for another big first.”
The Colorado bullpen (which has pitched well lately with a 3.35 ERA in the last 11 games coming into Tuesday) held the fort for a little while after Gomber got blasted.
Anthony Molina worked around three hits and a walk over three scoreless innings, but ran into trouble in his fourth frame. He departed with runners on second and third with one out in the seventh.
“That was exactly what we needed out of the bullpen, to cover three-plus innings with three zeros,” Schaeffer said. “Molina attacked the zone and got some quick outs.”
Nick Anderson spelled Molina, and his first pitch was a passed ball by Hunter Goodman that scored a run to make it 8-4. A walk followed, then Ohtani grounded into a fielder’s choice to score a run and Smith followed with an RBI single to make it 10-4. Smith added another RBI single in the ninth off Dugan Darnell. Tuesday was the third time this year that every Dodgers starter recorded a hit.
While the Dodgers remain in a tight race with the Padres for the NL West, the Rockies’ magic number to avoid matching the 2024 White Sox’s modern record of 121 losses remains six. With the way Colorado has played of late (14-16 since the All-Star break), it’s likely the Rockies avoid that infamy, though they remain on pace to book a third straight 100-loss season and the club’s worst year ever.
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