Missed chances cost Dodgers in loss to Rockies
· Yahoo Sports
DENVER — The Dodgers brought the noise early Saturday night at Coors Field. They just didn’t bring enough of it when it mattered.
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A quick two-run jolt, another homer from a red-hot young catcher, and a crowd that leaned heavily in their favor all left Coors Field disappointed. The Dodgers let it slip away, falling 4–3 to the Rockies, a loss defined less by what they did early and more by what they couldn’t finish late.
“We had some opportunities with guys on base, especially late,” Kyle Tucker said. “We just have to find ways to get hits or get those guys in.”
That was the game, distilled.
It couldn’t have started cleaner for the Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani reached to open the game, though on an error that didn’t help his on-base streak, and Tucker followed by ambushing the second pitch he saw from Ryan Feltner. The result: a 435-foot home run into the second deck and a 2–0 lead before many had settled into their seats.
Tucker’s early-count aggression has ticked up this season, and this was the ideal version of it, decisive, punishing, and loud. The Dodgers added two runs on the first three pitches of the game. But the game turned quieter from there.
The Rockies answered immediately against Emmet Sheehan, and the Dodgers never fully regained control. Sheehan labored through his outing, fighting both command and feel, even as he managed to keep the damage contained.
“I think last start we made a lot of progress on mechanical stuff,” Sheehan said. “Definitely happy with the pitches I made later but I gotta be better early in the game.”
Dave Roberts saw the same uneven start.
“Early on he didn’t have a good feel for anything, to be quite honest,” Roberts said. “Ball, strike ratio wasn’t good but I give him a lot of credit because he grinded, made pitches when he needed to. Ironically his best inning was his last.”
Sheehan finished the game going five strong innings, allowed four hits, two runs, two walks, and struck out four on 77 pitches.
The Dodgers did add on in the second, thanks to Dalton Rushing, who continues to force his way into the conversation every time he’s in the lineup. His fifth homer in just 19 plate appearances pushed the lead to 3–1 and underscored how locked in he’s been to open the year.
But that was it, the last Dodgers run of the night.
Feltner settled, the Dodgers stalled, and the game tightened inning by inning until it flipped in the sixth. With Sheehan out, reliever Will Klein ran into immediate trouble. A double, a deflected infield hit, and then a two-run gapper from Troy Johnston turned a one-run Dodgers lead into a one-run deficit.
“I thought tonight his sweeper, the feel for his spin wasn’t good,” Roberts said of Klein. “Tonight, it wasn’t sharp.”
That sequence, quick, messy, decisive, proved to be the difference. The Dodgers had their chances to answer. They just didn’t take them.
A pickoff in the seventh erased a potential rally. In the eighth, they loaded the bases and came away empty. By the end of the night: 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, eight men left on base, plus a double play and a baserunning mistake layered in.
It all built toward one final opportunity in the ninth.
After two quick outs, Will Smith kept the game alive with a pinch-hit single. Ohtani followed with another, a line drive to right that not only moved the tying run into scoring position but extended his on-base streak to 50 games.
“It’s remarkable,” Roberts said. “He found a way to get on base. It was good to see it. That’s quite the streak. You gotta be pretty dang good to do something like that. He’s in a class by himself.”
The moment was set. The tying run in scoring position. The go-ahead run on base. Tucker back at the plate.
And one pitch later, it was over. A first-pitch changeup, a fly ball to left, and a missed chance that lingered longer than any of his earlier swings.
“Some at-bats are better than others,” Tucker said. “Just need to try to carry it over to each at-bat in each game, rather than just kind of here and there.”
For the Dodgers, that inconsistency, not over a series, not over a week, but within the same game which is what cost them Saturday night. The power showed up. The crowd showed up. The opportunities showed up.
The hits, when they needed them most, did not.