Dodgers score early & often to support Julio Urías, beat Rockies

The Dodgers came out swinging in their first game after the All-Star break, beating the Rockies for the seventh time in eight games this season, 10-4 on Friday night at Coors Field. All those runs came in support of a usual recipient.

At the break, Julio Urías had the highest run support in the majors among qualified pitchers (and third in the majors among pitchers with at least 11 starts) at 6.7 runs per 27 outs. Friday was more of the same.

Five of the first six batters in the top of the first reached base, culminating in a two-run single by Cody Bellinger and a three-run home run by Chris Taylor, the 23rd inning scoring at least five runs by the Dodgers this season, 10 more than any other team.

“We just don’t give away at-bats. There’s been other times where I felt we could put up some crooked numbers, but we lined out and it just didn’t play out as such,” manager Dave Roberts said. “If you’re relentless and you keep doing that, good things are going to happen.”

Rockies starter Chi Chi Gonzalez surrendered 11 hard-hit balls — defined by Baseball Savant as having an exit velocity of 95 mph or higher — and was done after four innings, with the Dodgers tacking on two more in the fourth.

Against reliever Justin Lawrence, the Dodgers plated three in the fifth. By this point in the game, all nine Dodgers starters scored at least once.

Four of the Dodgers’ 11 games with double-digit runs scored this year have come in support of Urías, who has also seen the Dodgers score nine runs in three other starts.

“With the offense that we have, I try not to get too caught up in it. I just try to go out there and do my thing, and make pitches that I need to make,” Urías said. “Obviously when the offense gives you a cushion like the ones they’ve given me, it’s a lot easier to pitch.”

Urías worked around traffic on the bases in every inning on Friday, though was able to keep Colorado off the board in five of the six innings he started. He succumbed in the third inning thanks to two singles and a hit by pitch, followed by C.J. Cron cleaning things up with a 465-foot grand slam.

Notes

• Mookie Betts doubled, singled twice, and had. sacrifice fly. He has eight hits in 12 at-bats in his last three games, with nine runs scored. “He’s in a good place, certainly,” said Roberts.
• Will Smith drove in four runs, doubling home two in the fourth followed by a two-run single in the fifth.
• AJ Pollock doubled and walked, his fifth straight game with at least one extra-base hit. In July, Pollock is hitting .351/.442/.897 with six home runs and four doubles in 11 games.
• Phil Bickford, who got the final out of the sixth inning in relief, singled to lead off the seventh for his first hit as a professional, in just his second plate appearance.
• Garrett Cleavinger, Jake Reed, and Jimmie Sherfy — the latter making his Dodgers debut — recorded the final eight outs to finish off the Dodgers win. It was the first time all three pitchers appeared in the same game since June 3, 2013 with the Oregon Ducks.

Friday particulars

Home runs: Chris Taylor (11); C.J. Cron (13)

WP — Julio Urías (12-3): 5⅔ IP, 7 hits, 4 runs, 1 walk, 3 strikeouts

LP — Chi Chi González (3-6): 4 IP, 9 hits, 7 runs, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts

Up next

Walker Buehler starts the middle game of the series on Saturday (5:10 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA), with left-hander Kyle Freeland starting for the Rockies.