LOS ANGELES _ Last week, with the end of the regular season sneaking up, the Los Angeles Dodgers made an obvious but difficult decision with winning the World Series in mind. Tony Gonsolin deserved a spot in their starting rotation, and they gave him one. But a logjam made it more complicated than that. To create room, they traded Ross Stripling to the Toronto Blue Jays and informed Alex Wood he would return from the injured list as a reliever.
The postseason was a month away. The Dodgers, all but guaranteed a berth for the eighth straight year, have the luxury to treat the final stretch as playoff preparation. They opted to move two established veterans to give Gonsolin a shot.
On Saturday, in his first start since he was named to the rotation, Gonsolin delivered another quality performance, but the Dodgers couldn't muster another late-inning comeback and fell 5-2 to the Colorado Rockies.
The loss snapped the Dodgers' 11-game home winning streak and six-game winning streak overall. It was just the second time the Rockies have beaten them in the clubs' last 19 meetings at Dodger Stadium.
The thermometer read 101 degrees when Gonsolin threw the game's first pitch Saturday. It was a 95-mph fastball, just low and away for a ball to Raimel Tapia. He threw 74 more and was stingy until he was removed after six innings.
The right-hander allowed two runs, one earned, on three hits across six innings. He recorded eight strikeouts without a walk. Four of his strikeouts came on the slider, his third-best pitch. Eight of the 14 sliders he threw generated a swing-and-misses. He tried to convince manager Dave Roberts to let him stay in the game,but failed. He has a 0.76 earned-run average in five starts.
Victor Gonzalez relieved Gonsolin. The left-hander logged 1 2/3 scoreless innings before Treinen was summoned with two outs in the eighth inning. Treinen secured the third out, but couldn't get another one when he took the mound in the ninth. The Rockies recorded three straight opposite-field hits against Treinen, capped off by Nolan Arenado's RBI single, to take the lead and end Treinen's night.
Colorado broke the game open later in the inning on Josh Fuentes' pinch-hit, two-run double off Wood.
The Rockies broke through first thanks to a rare mistake from Mookie Betts. Charlie Blackmon smacked a leadoff double. He was at second base when Kevin Pillar followed with a flyball to the warning track in right field. Betts jumped to make the catch, but dropped the ball on the transition from glove to hand. Blackmon tagged up from second base and scurried around to score, just beating the relay throw home.
Blackmon lined a home run down the right field line in his next at-bat in the fourth inning to give Colorado a 2-0 lead.
Betts avenged his mistake by delivering a two-out RBI single to left field in the fifth inning. Corey Seager then shot the right-field gap for an RBI double to tie the game. Betts sprinted around from first base and scored standing up. He ran to the netting behind home plate, clasping it with a smile. He was out of breath and the heat didn't help.
A night after tallying five runs in the eighth inning to erase a one-run deficit, the Dodgers didn't score again and a strong outing from the newest member of their rotation was wasted.
