Los Angeles, California. Today the Colorado Rockies called up José Ureña, Santo Domingo, Dominican, to start against the Dodgers in the final game of this 3 game series. Ureña signed with the Rockies as a free agent in late May and since June 5th has been with their AAA team in Albuquerque. The 30 year old spent mostly all of his time in baseball with the Marlins organization. Today he will show the Rockies if he can help them or not. The Dodgers will not make it easy. Then again, a new look for the Dodgers could throw them off.
LA countered with Mitch White who gave them more than they expected in the opener of an important 4 game series last week against the second place Padres, going 4.2 innings and giving up only 1 run in a tight 3-1 game won by the Dodgers.
White was on again tonight. He is not flashy nor does he throw heat. He just gets his team off the field with little to no damage. He worked a no hitter into the 6th inning with 1 out until a walk and a soft base hit to center by Brendan Rodgers broke up the no-no and then an ill-advised throw to third by Cody Bellinger that ended up in the photographer’s well allowed the Rockies to take a 1-0 lead. White went from no-no, to the possibility of being the losing pitcher on one swing.
His line was 5.2 innings, 1 hit, 1 run, not earned, 4 walks and 6 strikeouts. He threw 102 pitches 65 for strikes. A waisted performance by someone who works hard to give his team an opportunity to win whenever he is on the hill.
But lets not forget about Ureña who was throwing some serious heat with fastballs and sinkers in the 96-98 mph range. He was pitching a 3 hit shutout into the 7th inning. After he got 2 outs he was touched for 2 hits and was removed with a 1 run lead. Holding this powerhouse Dodger club to 1 run over 6.2 innings was impressive. His replacement Jake Bird proceeded to hit Austin Barnes, the weakest hitter in the Dodger line-up to load the bases and then threw a wild pitch allowing Bellinger to score the tying run.
Bellinger was seeing the ball well tonight and would end up collecting 3 hits. The score was still tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth inning with him leading off. When he singled you could sense he would somehow be a big part in a Dodger walk-off win. With no outs, the bases loaded and the Rockies using 5 infielders Mookie Betts hit a high chopper off of the plate that went over pitcher Daniel Bard’s head and landed between two of the 5 infielders that neither could get a handle on, allowing Bellinger to score the winning run.
A crazy finish and another win for the first place Dodgers who are now 52-29 and a full 6 games ahead of the Padres who were idle tonight. Lost in the wild walk-off was a good game pitched by both White and Ureña. Colorado managed only 1 hit tonight against Dodger pitching.
.
