DENVER — The Dodgers escaped the House of Mile High Horrors having to salvage a split against the less-talented Colorado Rockies, having played the coldest game in franchise history, having reliever Blake Treinen hit in the head by a batted ball during batting practice.
And most significantly, having to report Monday that star closer Edwin Díaz will have surgery to remove “loose bodies” in his right elbow, likely sidelining him for three months.
But the fourth and final game at Coors Field was more normal, more like it. More like the Dodgers, who dominated, 12-3.
They piled up 15 hits, five of them home runs and scored in every inning but the first and fifth.
Among the Dodgers’ many highlights: Miguel Rojas pumping his fists running to first base after smacking his 1,000th hit through the hole to left field in the same ballpark where he got his first hit in 2014.
“Not many people could have thought that I was going to have an opportunity to play this long in the game,” said Rojas, who lost his father, Miguel “Micky” Rojas Sr., to a heart attack earlier this month.
“I never let anybody put a ceiling on top of my head,” added Rojas, who went three for three to push his career hits total to 1,001. “I kept going through those ceilings that they put above me. It was all about taking that label away from my head, that I was a defensive replacement guy, defensive-first guy. ‘He can’t hit, he’s just gonna play shortstop…’ That’s why 1,000 hits for me means a lot.”
Miguel Rojas celebrates after hitting a home run for the Dodgers in the second inning Monday against the Rockies.
(Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)
A power surge also electrified the crowd of 27,261, another pro-Dodgers assembly.
The Dodgers (16-6) hit back-to-back home runs for the first time this season. Those came in the second inning, when Nos. 6 and 7 hitters Max Muncy and Rojas — who Roberts flipped in the lineup just before the game — hit solo shots to put their team in front, 2-1.
Muncy added another long ball in the ninth, yanking his eighth home run of the season 397 feet into the left field to make it 10-2 — and career multi-homer game No. 22, as well as No. 5 at Coors Field and No. 3 this season.
And then there was Dalton Rushing, who got in the lineup at first base instead of catching, playing solidly in the field in place of Freddie Freeman — and continuing to smolder at the plate, hitting his sixth and seventh home runs in just his 26th and 27th at-bats this season.
Rushing’s 385-foot blast to left field and Teoscar Hernández’s RBI single made it 9-1 in the eighth. And Rushing’s two-run, 421-foot bomb in the ninth made it 12-2 and gave him his second career multi-home run game.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani rounds third base on his way to scoring in the third inning against the Rockies on Monday. Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 52 games.
(David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
Oh, and Shohei Ohtani. He extended his consecutive on-base streak to 52 with a single to right in the third, when the Dodgers pushed the lead to 4-1. That moved him within one game of Shawn Green’s mark, which is second all time among Dodgers. Ohtani also stole his first base of the season.
“It’s a tremendous streak,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s hard to get on base — certainly when everyone’s trying to target you. This streak is one of the great ones.”
The Rockies (9-14) even contributed to the Dodgers’ cause, with three errors and an ill-timed balk on starter José Quintana that not only erased a double play but brought home Muncy to make it 5-1 in the fourth.
On the mound, starter Justin Wrobleski shut down a Rockies team that just scored a combined 13 runs on their two wins against the Dodgers.
Working quickly, Wrobleski pitched seven innings, worked in a splitter for the first time this season and yielded eight hits but just one run. That came before he got his first out, when Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle opened with consecutive doubles.
Dodgers starting pitcher Justin Wrobleski delivers during the first inning against the Rockies on Monday night.
(Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)
After that, sharp defensive plays by Rushing and second baseman Santiago Espinal got the Dodgers out of the first inning. The Rockies didn’t threaten again against Wrobleski until the fifth, when they put runners on the corners with one out but couldn’t score.
The 25-year-old Wrobleski has given up just two runs in 20 innings through three starts — all wins — this season.
“I’m going out there trying to do the same thing every time, and that’s fill the zone and create contact and see what happens,” a gracious Wrobleski said. “So, yeah, I think we’ve done a great job. Will’s done a great job back there calling it. The defense has been really good. The analytics people, with the positioning of everybody, really good.”
The Rockies’ only other runs came on TJ Rumfield’s 440-foot home run in the eighth, and in the ninth, when they scored one run on Jake Eder, the reliever who made his Dodgers debut after being called up in place of Díaz.
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