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It was a good old fashioned pitcher’s duel between the Colorado Rockies’ German Marquez and the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walker Buehler on Friday night in LA.
Neither starting pitcher walked a batter and the game was deadlocked heading into the final frame, but the game felt like one that would end in some kind of unlikely walk-off hero for the home team and that’s exactly what happened.
The Dodgers scored the first run of the game in a peculiar fashion in the second inning. Max Muncy led off with a single but appeared to be caught too far off the bag when shortstop Brendan Rodgers hauled in a Matt Beaty line drive.
But in his scramble back to the base, Muncy swerved onto the infield grass giving Rodgers a much more difficult angle on the throw. The rookie let loose and the ball glanced off Muncy and away from Daniel Murphy, into the dugout.
It even looked like he may have swung his arms and body wide in a deliberate attempt to impede the play.
Muncy could have easily been ruled out of the basepaths but the umpire crew decided against that which was huge since Muncy got to move all the way to third with the call and scored on a sac fly off the bat of Chris Taylor.
The Rockies, meanwhile, couldn’t get a base runner against Buehler who dominated the first three innings, striking out a staggering eight hitters. But Nolan Arenado broke up the perfect game, no-hitter, and shutout all with one swing, driving one just over the wall in left for his 19th home run of the season.
The tie was short-lived, though as Cody Bellinger blasted one of his own over the wall in center for his eye-popping and league-leading 25th home run of the season in the bottom of the fourth.
The fifth flew by with both pitchers retiring the side in order in quick succession.
Buehler was well on his way to doing the same in the sixth with punchouts of Wolters and Marquez, putting him into double digits in that category.
But as hot as he was on the mound, he somehow managed to run into someone hotter at the plate.
Charlie Blackmon tied the game back up at 2-2 when he went up to get a high and tight 96 mph fastball and crushed it over the wall in right for his 18th home run of the season.
That extended his hit streak to 11 games and his on-base streak to 33 games.
Marquez was able to pitch impressively through the eighth inning, working around a one-out single up the middle to his counterpart in his final frame of work.
But Buehler was even more impressive, taking the mound in the top of the ninth and making sure a one-out single from Blackmon did not make the difference by striking out Dahl and Arenado.
That ran his K total up to 16, a new career high.
Jairo Diaz took the ball for the Rockies in the ninth and struck out Enrique Hernandez and got Bellinger to hit a two-hopper to second but lost a battle to Muncy, issuing the game’s first walk after eight pitches.
He then grooved a fastball down the middle that Beaty was able to hit just barely over the wall in center to give the Dodgers a 4-2 walk-off win.
