LOS ANGELES -- The crack of a fastball meeting a batting glove can instantly quiet a stadium, and on Monday night, it dealt the Rockies’ offense a potentially difficult blow.
First baseman TJ Rumfield exited the 5-3 Colorado loss at Dodger Stadium, sustaining a right hand contusion after being hit by an Emmet Sheehan pitch in the top of the first inning. While the sight of the 6-foot-5 rookie shaking his hand at the dugout railing caused immediate concern, his postgame evaluation was a relief.
Manager Warren Schaeffer confirmed that X-rays came back negative, revealing no broken bones.
"He got X-rays during the game, and they were good," Schaeffer said. "Nothing's broken. So that's an excellent sign. So we'll know more about it [tomorrow]."
The scare occurred when an inside pitch caught Rumfield squarely on the hand. He stayed in to run the bases and even took the field for the bottom of the frame, testing his grip with warmup throws. However, the discomfort forced him to exit before the Dodgers took their first swings, and Edouard Julien replaced him.
The injury comes at a tough time for a Rockies squad struggling to build momentum on the road. Losing Rumfield, even temporariy, would hurt, especially with key contributors Brenton Doyle and Jordan Beck already out with injuries of their own.
Across 53 games, Rumfield has a .284 batting average and a .810 OPS. Entering the series opener vs. Los Angeles, he was batting .348 over his last seven games.
Right-hander Tanner Gordon, making his first career start at Dodger Stadium, threw five innings of one-run ball. Relying heavily on crisp sliders and command on the corners, Gordon twice pitched his way out of trouble to keep the game deadlocked while feeding off the environment.
"The energy here is phenomenal," Gordon said of his start in L.A. "I think anyone who pitches here gets that little boost of adrenaline. I was able to keep us in the game for those five innings. ... I was just staying out of the middle of the zone."
Gordon's outing allowed the offense to respond. Fourth-inning RBI singles from Willi Castro and Ezequiel Tovar built an early lead. Tovar added on in the seventh inning with a solo home run to deep center field, snapping his homer drought of 172 at-bats and also ending a 38-inning scoreless streak by the Dodgers' bullpen.
But protecting a lead at Dodger Stadium requires a clean finish, and the game slipped away in the bottom of the seventh.
Reliever Juan Mejia started the inning by issuing consecutive walks to Will Smith and Hyeseong Kim. Left-hander Brennan Bernardino entered to control the inning but hit pinch-hitter Miguel Rojas, loading the bases without a Dodgers hit.
A replay review overturned a forceout on a Shohei Ohtani grounder, allowing a run to score. Mookie Betts followed with a sacrifice fly that scored Kim, then Freddie Freeman hit a go-ahead RBI double. Jaden Hill entered and allowed an Andy Pages single to cap off a four-run frame.
For Schaeffer, the self-inflicted nature of the loss was the primary frustration.
"A couple of base hits, walk, walk, hit by pitch – that's not earning it," Schaeffer said. "The walk, walk to lead off the inning late in the game against a good team in their yard, that's just not going to work.”
Despite the late turnaround, the evening provided a positive. The club’s No. 14 prospect, Welinton Herrera, made his Major League debut, working a perfect eighth inning.
"That's pretty much the biggest stage you can make your debut on," Schaeffer remarked. "I'm just extremely happy for [Herrera] that he got in there and got to get the first one out of the way. But he attacked the strike zone, [and] didn't look nervous one bit."
While official timelines for Rumfield's return remain up in the air, Schaeffer's focus was already on the next game. When asked postgame about the difficulty of watching a game slip away late, the manager leaned into unshakeable trust.
"I don't think it's a helpless feeling," Schaeffer said. "You trust them all the time. Sometimes that happens. We're learning to not do that and turn those one- and two-run games into victories. We know what it takes. It's just a matter of time. And tomorrow we look to flip the script."