Clips for 7-12-10

MEDIA CLIPS – April 10, 2017 Batting champ LeMahieu emerges from slump By Owen Perkins / Special to MLB.com | April 9th, 2017 DENVER -- A silver lining to Sunday's 10-6 Rockies loss to the Dodgers came off the bench, and was powered by the man with the Silver Bat symbolizing his Tony Gwynn Award from 2016. DJ LeMahieu, last year's batting champion who boasted a Majors-best .348 average, was taking a pre-planned day off Sunday, but it probably came at an opportune time. LeMahieu entered the game in the seventh inning having hit .087 (2- for-23) in his first six games of the season. "It's not like an ideal start for me, but it's fine," LeMahieu said after Sunday's game. "I had a couple good ABs today. I'm ready to get going, and ready to beat up on the Padres coming in. We had a good series this series. I'm ready to get going tomorrow already." LeMahieu matched his season total of two hits with two late-inning at-bats Sunday, a couple hard drives to right field with the second bouncing off the out-of-town scoreboard for a triple. "Those are more like his swings," manager Bud Black said. "The line drive to right. The ball that hit off the wall, he hit that good. That was good to see." His ninth-inning run-scoring triple and his subsequent run scored to touch Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen for two runs gave the Rockies a sense of satisfaction as they won the series, but lost their chance at the sweep. 1 "With Jansen, he's usually lights out," LeMahieu said. "We didn't want him to have a comfortable inning. I feel like we put together some good ABs, so it was good to get on their closer like that." A week is a small sample during the course of a 162-game season, and nobody in the Rockies clubhouse has panicked about the reigning batting champ, who seems to be finding his groove again. "It kind of stinks to get off to a start like that, especially when guys are on base and I'm not driving guys in," LeMahieu said. "It's really frustrating. But I felt good today. Hopefully, I can continue that. I'm looking forward to playing the Padres." 2 Blackmon homers as Rockies lose finale By Owen Perkins and Ken Gurnick / MLB.com | April 9th, 2017 DENVER -- The Dodgers jumped ahead of Colorado early Sunday at Coors Field and held on through six tight innings before pulling away in the seventh, avoiding a sweep and rising above .500. The pop from the top of the order paced L.A.'s 10-6 win over the Rockies on a windswept day. "We needed to get a win today," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. The Dodgers took the early lead on a double serving of first-inning doubles from leadoff hitter Logan Forsythe and three- hole hitter Justin Turner, who plated two with his drive to left. Corey Seager took a free pass between the doubles. The Forsythe-Seager-Turner triumvirate reached base in six of their first seven trips to the plate, scoring four runs and driving home all of L.A.'s first five runs. Seager padded the Dodgers' early lead with his second homer of 2017, a towering 427-foot two-run shot to center field. Rockies starter Tyler Anderson had uncharacteristic control troubles, walking a career-high four batters in five innings. Three of his four walks resulted in runs, and his high pitch count -- 95 pitches (54 for strikes) sped his exit, marking his shortest career outing at Coors Field. "Tyler's a strikes thrower," Rockies manager Bud Black said. "Today he was a little bit off. The walks came back to haunt him a couple different occasions. He'll work on that between starts. His next start up in San Francisco, hopefully we'll see a better ball-strike ratio." Anderson is the first lefty the Dodgers have beaten in three tries this season. Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda took advantage of the cushion to notch his first win of the season without his best stuff, allowing four runs on five hits and a walk while striking out five in five innings. It marked the most runs the right-hander has allowed against the Rockies in five career starts. "I thought Kenta pitched well until the leadoff walk to [Tony] Wolters in the fifth," said Roberts. "That got him off track a little bit." Charlie Blackmon sailed his first homer of the season through the wind when he crushed a 403-foot blast over the center-field fence in the third inning and trimmed the Dodgers' lead to 4-2. 3 DJ LeMahieu powered a ninth-inning Rockies rally with a run-scoring triple, touching closer Kenley Jansen for two runs in the losing effort. "With Jansen, he's usually lights out," LeMahieu said. "We didn't want him to have a comfortable inning. It was good to get on their closer like that." MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Extra outs: The Dodgers converted a pair of unusual fielding plays and a Rockies error into extra runs to secure their lead in the sixth and break away in the seventh. Austin Barnes tripled to right with one out in the sixth, taking advantage of swirling winds that gusted from 10-38 mph and a tough sky to get an extra base. Rockies second baseman Alexi Amarista stopped a grounder from pinch-hitter Andrew Toles in the next at-bat, but couldn't get a throw off to first as Barnes scored from third. A costly error in the seventh came on catcher Wolters' pickoff attempt that allowed Turner to score. Two more runs would score before the end of the inning. Black talked to home-plate umpire Gary Cederstrom about possible interference from Turner on the pickoff attempt. "They said it was non-interference, and I begged to differ," Black said. "I thought it was. They said it wasn't. I do like the fact that they conferred, the home-plate umpire and the third-base umpire conferred. In real time, what I saw, it looked a little funky." Tyler sets the table: With everyone in the park knowing the attempt was coming, Anderson put down a beauty of a sacrifice bunt in the third inning with one out and Wolters on first to set the stage for Blackmon's first homer of the season. The rally got the Rockies back in the game, and they were able to keep it close until the Dodgers' three-run seventh. QUOTABLE "That was one of the weirdest games, weather-wise, condition-wise, I've probably ever played at Coors Field, for sure." -- LeMahieu, on the bizarre conditions that wreaked havoc on the behavior of the baseball Sunday "You could tell as the game went on there were a number of plays that definitely affected the ball. You saw a couple of pitchers step off, not unlike Stu Miller back in the All-Star Game at Candlestick. There were some balls that were knocked down, there were some balls that carried in the wind. That's almost better to have no wind and have it be cold than to be windy. It screws a lot of things up." -- Black, on the mighty wind 4 SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS The Rockies bullpen gave up five runs (four earned) on 10 hits and a walk in four innings Sunday. In the season's previous six games, Rockies relievers had given up a total of four runs on 12 hits and eight walks in 21 innings. UPON FURTHER REVIEW The Dodgers asked for a review of Cederstrom's call on a passed ball that rolled into the Dodgers' dugout with runners on first and second in the seventh, claiming that Wolters touched the ball with his mask. On a crew-chief review, the umpires verified that the play was not reviewable. "We thought Wolters might have touched the ball before it went into the dugout, but we learned that play is not reviewable," Roberts said. In the top of the ninth, the Rockies challenged a "no-catch" call on an Adrian Gonzalez short fly to left that Gerardo Parra dove for and gloved. The initial call was that the ball hit the grass. Gonzalez was safe at first with a 7-3 fielder's choice as Parra threw out Yasiel Puig as he returned to first base thinking the ball had been caught. After review, the call was ruled to stand. "Yasiel got a good jump and thought he made the catch and retreated, but he didn't pick up the umpire, and the umpire made the right call," said Roberts. WHAT'S NEXT Dodgers: Alex Wood subs for Rich Hill to start Monday's 5:05 p.m. PT game against the Cubs, who will be raising their World Series championship banners in the Wrigley Field opener. Rockies: Tyler Chatwood (0-1, 6.00 ERA) climbs the hill for his second start of the season, a 6:40 p.m. MT tilt with the Padres on Monday. Chatwood was 3-0 in four starts against San Diego in 2016, posting a 3.76 ERA and walking nine while striking out 21 over 26 1/3 innings. 5 Lefty Rusin's return bolsters bullpen By Daniel Kramer / MLB.com | April 9th, 2017 DENVER -- A versatile Rockies bullpen installed another left-hander Sunday when Chris Rusin was activated off the 10- day disabled list from a right oblique strain he suffered March 3.

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