Rockies dominated by Dodgers for second straight night

For the second straight night, the Colorado Rockies failed to put up much of a fight against the Los Angeles Dodgers. For the second straight night, the Colorado Rockies struck out in the double digits. For the second straight night, the Dodgers thoroughly dominated the Rockies in a fashion that has longtime viewers of the latter feeling like they’ve seen this movie before. And it doesn’t end well.

For the second straight night, the Colorado Rockies got a decent — if not stellar — performance from their starting pitcher. Chad Bettis wasn’t quite as good as Jorge De La Rosa was the night before, but he did manage to battle through six innings, experiencing some tough luck early. He gave up two runs in the first on a series of seeing-eye singles but did give up a pair of doubles in the third for a total of four runs in the first three innings.

He really buckled down after that and mostly cruised through his final three innings, but it wouldn’t matter much with the Rockies unable to get anything going offensively.

For the second straight night, the Rockies were dominated by a pitcher, this time, Scott Kazmir — whose name doesn’t exactly come to mind when fans and experts are spitballing about some of the best arms in the league.

A Cristhian Adames double with one out in the fifth and a DJ LeMahieu double with one out in the sixth represented the Rockies best opportunities to score until Nolan Arenado absolutely obliterated a Joe Thatcher pitch that landed in a different area code.

Arenado had struck out in his three prior at-bats, and thrice the day before as well, leading many to note how deeply mired he was in a funk right up until he tattooed his name on that baseball and put himself back to within one of the MLB home-run lead.

Justin Turner continues to be a thorn in the Rockies side, recording three hits, scoring twice. Ditto for Trayce Thompson who had two hits and two RBI.

Final score: Dodgers 6, Rockies 1.

Lasting Impact

It took the Rockies until the 18th inning of this road-trip to finally score a singular run. It was a glorious blast off the bat of Nolan Arenado but it did nothing to erase the sneaking sensation that this kind of disappearing act has been lurking on the horizon for this offense for some time.

A third consecutive dud on offense will — and probably should — send fans into full-blown panic mode. The Rockies can lose tomorrow without incurring this wrath, but they can’t look completely lost on offense all game.

Player of the Game

Scott Kazmir threw six innings, giving up only three hits and striking out 10 Rockies without walking a single batter. The Rockies offense let him off the hook with some bad execution but credit where it’s due: Kazmir had good stuff tonight.

What’s Next

The Rockies try to salvage the final game of the series in LA tomorrow at 2:10 MST. Jon Gray will be looked at to be the stopper … again … taking the hill against Brandon McCarthy.