DENVER — It took an act of God to get Yoshinobu Yamamoto some run support.
Yamamoto and Colorado Rockies rookie Chase Dollander took an un-Coors-ian scoreless pitchers’ duel into the sixth inning on Wednesday night when a thunderstorm arrived in the Denver area, announcing its presence with lightning visible in the distance.
Heavy rain started falling during the Dodgers’ half of the sixth inning. With two on and two outs, Max Muncy lofted a high pop-up into the wind and thick raindrops – at least one the size of a baseball. Second baseman Thairo Estrada and first baseman Michael Toglia looked up into the rain and lost sight of the ball. When it thudded to the ground near Toglia, he had so thoroughly lost track of the ball that he was startled.
“I was just happy I made contact,” Muncy said later, after the Dodgers had secured an 8-1 win. “My glasses were pretty full of water at that point, and was just kind of praying to put the ball in play. Hit it to the right spot, I guess. It’s hard to argue that when you get it in the air, when rain is falling that thick, it’s really hard to look up and find a baseball.
“At first I was just happy I made contact. Then you’re upset you popped it up. Then you see them kind of scrambling around, and you start getting a little excited. Then it drops and obviously you’re happy about it.”
Two runs scored on that play – more than Yamamoto has become accustomed to getting in support this season – and the Dodgers added a third when play resumed 87 minutes later. Muncy’s next hit went up into a dry sky, landing in the right field seats for a seventh-inning grand slam that put away the victory over the Rockies.
“I give Max a lot of credit for just staying in the at-bat, fighting to put the ball in play, to allow for something like that to happen,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the mile-high infield single. “It certainly changed the momentum because their guy, we couldn’t figure him out. They couldn’t figure Yamamoto out. So if you end that top half of the sixth, tie game with no runs it might have been a different ballgame. But to get the two right there, come back from the delay and keep pouring it on was good to see from our guys.”
It was a welcome sight for Yamamoto, who did not return after the rain delay. The Dodgers have now scored a total of 25 runs when he was officially in the game during his 16 starts this season. Ten times they have scored once or not at all when Yamamoto was pitching.
For awhile, Yamamoto was able to brush off the lack of support. He had an 0.90 ERA over his first seven starts and the Dodgers won five of the seven.
But Yamamoto was unable to maintain his Cy Young Award-caliber pace. Over his eight starts before Wednesday, his ERA was 4.43.
Coors Field is a great place for slumping hitters to get right. Pitchers? Not so much.
But Yamamoto rediscovered his Cy Young standard against the Rockies. He retired the first eight batters he faced, four on strikeouts, and 11 of the first 12. He walked a batter in the fifth but got a ground ball double play, facing just 16 batters in the five scoreless innings he pitched before the rain arrived.
“I started feeling good last week, and going into today’s game,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “Today I was attacking with a first-pitch strike pretty well. I think that was it.”
Some pitchers will de-emphasize their breaking pitches at Coors Field because of the effects of the altitude. (Justin Wrobleski threw just three curveballs in 86 pitches on Tuesday, for example.) But Yamamoto threw 13 curveballs in his 56 pitches, using it more than his four-seam fastball (11). He got four swings-and-misses, four called strikes and a foul ball. The Rockies never put one of his curveballs in play.
He also got six swings-and-misses on his 16 splitters and an average exit velocity of 78.6 mph when the Rockies put that pitch in play.
“They were going up there pretty aggressive as hitters and those are the two (pitches) that kind of got them off-time and allowed him to create more swing-and-miss,” said rookie catcher Dalton Rushing, who caught Yamamoto for the first time Wednesday.
“You kind of get a feel of what they’re trying to do. When that happens, it kind of allows you to create a new game plan around them. I felt they were going up there trying to swing the bat early. Whatever pitches we had to use to get into a two-strike count, that’s what I wanted to do. It worked out great for Yoshi the first five innings.”
A relief relay of Lou Trivino, Alex Vesia, Michael Kopech and Will Klein took over after play resumed and held the Rockies to one unearned run over the last four innings.
Their job was made easier by Muncy’s grand slam – his second in the past three games during which he has three home runs and 13 RBIs. Michael Conforto added a solo home run in the eighth inning, his second home run in two days at Coors Field.
“He’s got a lot of confidence right now,” Roberts said of Muncy. “The at-bat quality each time, it’s just good. He’s seeing the baseball well. Confident. Taking good at-bats. Driving in runs when we need them. Getting big hits. Playing good defense. And we need it. Not everyone is swinging the bat well, so to have that production from Max in the middle of the lineup has been paramount.”
