Rox bottom. Again.
The Colorado Rockies went 30 years without losing 100 games in a season. Now they’ve done it in back-to-back seasons. At least they aren’t the White Sox.
The Dodgers lambasted them, 13-2, on Saturday night at Coors Field in front of an announced crowd of 48,395, the eighth sellout of the season.
“I’ll state the obvious: it is bothersome,” manager Bud Black said about the 100-loss seasons. “Whether it’s loss No. 1, loss No. 50, you don’t like them, you don’t like losing. All of us in this game are competitors.
“But in the bigger picture, you have to look at the perspective of where we are with our team, and where we are going. That’s the bigger picture through all of this. … This is a much different team than it was in April.
“As far as (100), those are losses, we have been beaten by the other team. And there are games that we have also lost ourselves, but not that many. In most cases, we have been beaten.”
Loss No. 100 included:
• Three-run homers by the Dodgers’ Kike Hernandez and Toescar Hernandez, and 18 hits overall for Los Angeles, including four doubles.
• A 2-for-5 night by superstar Shohei Ohtani, who’s chasing a rare triple crown as the season enters its final day on Sunday. Ohtani, who’s already clinched the home run (54) and RBI titles (130), is hitting .310, just behind San Diego’s Luis Arraez’s .314.
• Nine walks by Rockies pitchers, including four by starter Antonio Senzatela in his 4 1/3 innings. Two of those free passes were leadoff walks — to Will Smith in the fourth and Ohtani in the fifth — and both came around to score. Also, reliever Jake Bird hit two batters in the Dodger’s four-run ninth.
Saturday marked just the second time in franchise history that the Rockies allowed 18 or more hits while issuing at least nine walks in a single game. The last time was on May 19, 1999, vs. Cincinnati, when the Reds had 28 hits and drew nine walks.
The Rockies lost 103 games last season, and expectations were low heading into this one. While hope is on the horizon with young players on the roster and talented prospects waiting for their chance, the here and now is ugly.
Fittingly, the uber-talented Dodgers put the Rockies in the triple-digit loss column again. Los Angeles improved to 8-3 against Colorado this season and is 5-1 at Coors. All time, L.A. is 315-212 vs. the Rockies.
Rockies shortstop Ezequiel Tovar, whom Black continues to tout as the worthy Gold Glove winner, continued to show why he’s the team’s MVP. He hit a solo home run in the third, his team-leading 26th. He also singled in Colorado’s one-run first inning and singled in the ninth to raise his average to .270.
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