The Shohei Ohtani show flopped on Wednesday night at Coors Field.
The reborn Rockies hammered the Dodgers’ two-way superstar for five runs on nine hits over four innings en route to an 8-3 victory.
Hammered is the operative word. In Colorado’s three-run fourth inning, Orlando Arcia lined a hot shot off Ohtani’s right leg for a base hit. Ohtani limped in pain, but he stayed in the game through the seventh inning as a designated hitter. The Dodgers said after the game that Ohtani was hit in the thigh, the same place a pitch had recently hit him, but he was not injured.
But the Rockies pummeled him.
“We had a good plan against him and we executed our plan,” manager Warren Schaeffer said. “He went soft a lot and it seemed like the boys didn’t spit on a lot of balls outside the zone.”
The Rockies, winners of seven of their last nine games, outhit Los Angeles 16-6.
Wednesday marked Ohtani’s first regular-season start at Coors Field. He started for the American League in the 2021 All-Star Game, retiring all three batters he faced while going 0 for 2 at the plate in the AL’s 5-2 victory over the National League. Ohtani was pitching for the Angels at the time.
The nine hits Ohtani allowed matched a career-high, and the five earned runs allowed were a season high and his most since also allowing five runs on July 21, 2023, vs. Pittsburgh.
Meanwhile, Rockies right-hander Tanner Gordon muffled the Dodgers’ bats for six innings Wednesday night. The only run he allowed was a solo homer to Teoscar Hernández in the sixth. Gordon gave up just four hits, walked one, and struck out three.
“It was a good mix tonight, in and out,” Schaeffer said. “He just pitched. It’s all about command. When we have commanded the ball, we’ve got strong starts out of our guys. Tanner was good tonight, really good.”
Gordon said the key was to attack the Dodgers’ potent lineup.
“Me and ‘Schaeff’ had that discussion,” he said. “It just comes down to coincidence. You have to go up there and attack. Once the ball leaves your hand, it’s kind of out of your control. So you have have to attack and stay aggressive the whole game.”
Gordon notched wins in back-to-back starts for the first time in his career. He beat the Diamondbacks last Friday at Coors Field, holding them to three runs over five innings. Gordon’s four wins this season have come against the Yankees, Cardinals, D-backs and Dodgers — all at Coors Field.
Colorado hit Ohtani hard in the second and fourth innings.
In the two-run second, Jordan Beck led off with a bloop single, Mickey Moniak ripped a single to right-center, and Brenton Doyle’s double down the left-field drove in a run. Arcia’s sacrifice fly to foul territory in deep right field scored another run.
Colorado ripped Ohtani for five consecutive hits in the fifth. Rookie Warming Bernabel — who’s hitting .311 since becoming the starting first baseman — doubled home a run, Arcia’s liner off Ohtani scored Mickey Moniak from third, and Tyler Freeman’s single scored Arcia to put the Rockies ahead 5-0.
The Rockies had lost 11 of their last 12 games to the Dodgers entering the night, but they piled it on late in LoDo. Hunter Goodman contributed an RBI single in the sixth and mashed a two-run double in the eighth.
There is often a pro-Dodgers crowd at Coors, but by game’s end, Rockies fans in the announced crowd of 35,240 drowned out the fans wearing Dodger Blue.
“That’s a good thing,” Schaeffer said. “I did hear our fans, and I’m thankful for that. But every day, we just try to stack games on top of each other … Our effort level, our style of baseball, we believe that that works. It’s good that we are seeing some results from that.”
The Rockies will attempt to clinch the four-game series on Thursday afternoon at Coors.
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