The Colorado Rockies were ready to celebrate a rare win over the Los Angeles Dodgers but an epic collapse in Tuesday night’s ninth inning left them steamed and feeling empty.
Los Angeles scored seven times in the ninth to pull out an 11-9 win, its fourth straight this season against Colorado and 14th victory in the past 18 games over the Rockies.
Colorado will try to make a quick recovery against the Dodgers when the teams resume their four-game series in Denver on Wednesday night. Ryan Feltner (1-6, 5.71 ERA) will be on the mound for the Rockies while Los Angeles is expected to activate Bobby Miller (1-1, 5.40) from the injured list to make his first start since April 10.
Miller was shut down with right shoulder inflammation after his outing at Minnesota when he gave up two runs on five hits in four innings of work. He was placed on the IL three days later and started his rehab assignment on May 26.
Miller said he was bothered by shoulder inflammation around the time of the team’s trip to Seoul, South Korea, in March.
“I’m still trying to figure out what caused it,” he told SportsNet LA on Tuesday. “It all started right after Korea, and slowly just got a little bit worse, and started messing with my delivery a little bit, and mechanics were changing a little bit. I’m feeling 100 percent now, and just looking to stay that way the rest of the season.”
Wednesday will be his second career start against Colorado. In his only other outing against the Rockies, which came at Coors Field on Sept. 26, 2023, he got the win with seven innings of two-run ball in the 11-inning game.
Feltner is coming off an outing against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night in which he was tagged for three homers and four total runs over 6 2/3 innings. He left the game with back tightness but it wasn’t severe enough to make him miss his turn in the rotation.
He has yet to win at home this season and is 0-2 with a 6.89 ERA in six starts at Coors Field.
Feltner was the starter on April 30 at Miami, the first time this season Colorado took a five-run lead (5-0) into the ninth inning, only to lose 7-6 in 10 innings.
Tuesday night’s loss was hard to swallow after it appeared Dodgers slugger Teoscar Hernandez struck out on a check swing with two outs in the top of the ninth and the Rockies leading 9-8, but he held up on appeal to first base umpire Lance Barksdale.
Hernandez then hit a three-run homer. That followed a pinch-hit grand slam by Jason Heyward in the same inning.
“It was a tough one for sure,” manager Bud Black said. “We’ve had some tough ones before but we’ve shown some resiliency, but this was a tough one.”
Colorado likely will be without veteran Charlie Blackmon for the rest of the series. He left Tuesday night’s game with a hamstring issue and is expected to be down for a few days.
“Charlie’s sore. It’s a hamstring strain to the extent we’ll know in the next day or two,” Black said. “Because it’s mild, that’s a positive.”
–Field Level Media
