The Los Angeles Dodgers bats exploded again today as three homeruns powered the Dodgers to a 10-8 lead and a series split with the Colorado Rockies. After the Dodgers were down 3-0 early, James Loney led the Dodgers all the way back with a grand slam against Colorado starter Ubaldo Jimenez in the top of the 3rd. The Dodgers would tack on a pair of solo home runs in the Top of the 5th, first a towering shot by Matt Kemp and another from Rod Barajas. Kemp's 5th inning homerun was his 20th of the season which leads the National League. The Dodgers would end up with 17 hits on the day (coming off the 18 hit game last night) as the Rockies pitchers (from Ubaldo to the bullpen) couldn't do much to slow down the Dodger bats.
Rubby De La Rosa had a somewhat similar outing as his starting debut in Philadelphia. He started out slowly by giving up a 3 run homerun in the bottom of the first to put the Dodgers in an early hole. But De La Rosa would settle down afterwards, as he shut out the Rockies for the rest of his outing while striking out 6. Though Dodger fans should be accustomed to injuries at this point, there was yet another nervous moment for Dodger fans in the 6th inning as De La Rosa appeared to have hurt his thumb while throwing a pitch to Troy Tulowitzki in the bottom of the 6th. After a quick mound visit by the trainer, De La Rosa was pulled from the game. Early report doesn't sound serious as it was apparently a forearm cramp.
At this point it became a battle of bullpens which went pretty much how you would expect. Ramon Troncoso was called upon to take over for Rubby and was pretty terrible. Solid through 1 inning, then gave up a 2 run homerun to Carlos Gonzalez in the 7th inning followed by a double and then another home run by Tulowitzki to cut the lead to 9-7 before getting yanked. After Troncoso had cleared the bases for the second time in the 7th, Mike MacDougal cleaned up the mess getting the last out and pitching a scoreless 8th inning before giving way to Blake Hawksworth for attempted save. Hawksworth retired the first two batters of the inning but after surrendering the 7th home run of the game to Todd Helton and a single to Tulowitzki, Mattingly brought in Scott Elbert to face the left-handed Seth Smith. In perhaps the only "easy" pitching appearance of the day, Elbert recorded the rare one batter save to finally end the game.
Interestingly, despite the mini 3 game losing streak, the Dodgers come out of the tough 10 game road trip (3 vs. Cincinnati and Philadelphia, 4 vs. Colorado) with a split and come back to Chavez Ravine for 12 games. The home stand starts tomorrow with Hiroki Kuroda taking on Bronson Arroyo.
WP - Rubby De La Rosa (3-0): 5 IP, 3 hits, 3 run, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts
LP - Ubaldo Jimenez (1-7): 5.1 IP, 11 hits, 7 runs (2 earned), 1 walk, 2 strikeouts
SV - Scott Elbert (1): 0.1 IP