LOS ANGELES -- After the way the Rockies refused to go away late in games, the Dodgers must have been glad to see them depart Dodger Stadium with all of their bags in tow at the conclusion of this week's three-game series.
Colorado continued to make things interesting in Wednesday night's finale, which turned into somewhat of a pitchers' duel despite early shakiness from both the Dodgers' Roki Sasaki and the Rockies' Gabriel Hughes.
But L.A. held onto a 4-3 win courtesy of Mookie Betts' go-ahead RBI single in the eighth inning to take two out of three from its NL West foes.
"They got some good arms. They got some good talent. They played us tough," Betts said. "Fortunately, we were able to come out on top. But I don’t think anybody in here takes any series for granted.”
Here are three takeaways from the series finale:
Sasaki at the halfway point
Coming off a rough outing in which he allowed six runs across three innings to the Padres, Sasaki was shaky again early on. He served up solo homers to Kyle Karros and Edouard Julien that sliced L.A.'s lead to 3-2 in the second inning, then gave up the tying run on a sacrifice fly in the third.
The Rockies seemed poised to take the lead in the fourth, when Sasaki gave up a single and a double to put a pair of runners in scoring position with nobody out. But Sasaki bore down, working a three-pitch strikeout of Troy Johnston on a foul tip. A longer battle with Julien ended in a called strike three on the eighth pitch. Sasaki got out of the jam by getting Ezequiel Tovar to fly out to right field.
"I thought that he was fight-or-flight mode right there, and it was good to see it," manager Dave Roberts said. "A lot of conviction, every throw he made."
After escaping the fourth inning unscathed, Sasaki retired all six of the batters he faced in the fifth and sixth, ending up with a quality start in spite of the early stress.
Sasaki ended his first half with a 5.33 ERA in 16 starts. His overall body of work was inconsistent, but he's heading into the second half with an idea of what he needs to work on in order to improve.
"When you look at the numbers, I'm not satisfied with that," Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. "But I was able to [stay in] the rotation and the velo's kind of gotten a little bit up. So I'm kind of happy with it."
Betts flips the script
During the Dodgers' previous homestand, Roberts pointed out that the offense was missing chances to break open games, letting opponents hang around for too long. That was also the case this series, when the Rockies tied Monday's game in the ninth inning (before being walked off) and pulled off an eighth-inning comeback on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, the Dodgers struck for three runs off Hughes in the first inning, capped by a two-run single from Kyle Tucker. But it took until the sixth inning for another Dodger to reach base. Starting with an Alex Call strikeout, Hughes retired 15 straight L.A. batters, giving the Rockies time to tie the game.
With Antonio Senzatela on the mound in the eighth inning, the Dodgers broke the deadlock. Three consecutive singles from Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman and Betts got the job done. Betts fell behind 1-2, but worked the count full. He punched the ninth pitch of the at-bat up the middle to send L.A. in front.
"Can't force it. You can't hit a bad pitch. You still have to get something decent to get the job done," Betts said. "And I think kind of relaxing actually helped me a lot."
Henriquez in the trust tree
The Dodgers' bullpen gave up late leads in the first two games of the series, but the relief corps performed on Wednesday night, highlighted by a gutsy performance from Edgardo Henriquez.
The hard-throwing Henriquez has been a bit of a wild card in the past, but he has since emerged as a legitimate leverage arm. Roberts had no problem sending him out to inherit the bases loaded with two outs from Alex Vesia in the eighth inning, and indeed, Henriquez escaped the jam with a harmless fly ball to right field.
"We're putting him in a lot of different leverage spots. He's come a long way," Roberts said. "He's in the trust tree, and he's earned it."