DENVER — By the end of the third inning Tuesday night, the Dodgers had put Monday night’s stumbling effort behind them and turned Coors Field into the therapist’s couch it can be for visiting teams, making all their problems go away.
The Dodgers scored seven times in those first three innings. Shohei Ohtani hit his 44th home run of the season. Alex Call hit his first as a Dodger and they went on to beat the Colorado Rockies, 11-4, in the second game of a four-game visit.
Every Dodger in the starting lineup had at least one hit on a night when they finished with 18. Call had four. Will Smith had three. Seven different hitters drove in runs.
The outfield defense that was so costly in Monday’s loss was not a problem Tuesday. The same lineup that went 2 for 11 with runners in scoring position on Monday with 12 strikeouts against a Rockies pitching staff that ranks last in the majors in strikeouts was 7 for 15 with RISP on Tuesday and struck out just three times.
Rockies starter Austin Gomber came into the game with an 0-6 record and 6.75 ERA in 11 starts for the worst team in baseball and did nothing to dispel the impression created by those numbers.
He walked Will Smith with two outs in the first inning then gave up back-to-back doubles to Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez for a 2-0 Dodgers lead.
Call and Ohtani hit their home runs off of Gomber in the second. Ohtani’s was a rocket that left his bat at 115.9 mph and came to earth 413 feet away.
Freeman and Hernandez started more trouble for Gomber in the third with back-to-back singles. Call drove in another two-out run with a single. Miguel Rojas and Buddy Kennedy did the same to make it a 7-0 runaway.
Call later added a double and a single for his four-hit game, finishing a triple shy of the cycle when he struck out in his final at-bat.
Emmet Sheehan was the beneficiary of all the Dodger offense. He went six typically Coors-ian innings. He was mostly in control but gave up a pair of two-run home runs – one to Brenton Doyle in the fourth inning and another to Kyle Karros in the sixth.
Karros’ home run was his first in the major leagues and came with his father, former Dodgers first baseman and current broadcaster Eric, there to see it (though not on air for SportsNet LA).
The second two-run homer made the game close enough to rouse the Dodgers’ offense again. Three runs on four singles and a walk in the seventh inning put the game away.
It was the 24th time this season the woeful Rockies have given up at least 10 runs in a game.
More to come on this story.