The Rockies Hung Around Until the Avalanche Hit

For six innings Monday night, the Rockies managed to do something that has become increasingly difficult lately: they kept the Dodgers quiet.

Then the seventh inning arrived, and Coors Field’s favorite natural disaster somehow broke loose 1,000 miles west of Denver.  It’s like an avalanche waiting for the last snowflake — nothing happens… nothing happens… then everything happens.

The Dodgers sent nine men to the plate in the seventh, scored four runs, erased a late deficit and turned what had felt like an oddly sluggish evening into another comeback victory, beating the Rockies 5-3 at Dodger Stadium for their 10th win in the last 12 games.

The inning unfolded less like a clean rally and more like controlled chaos.

The Dodgers entered the seventh trailing 3-1 after Ezequiel Tovar ended the bullpen’s franchise-record 38-inning scoreless streak with a towering solo homer in the top half of the inning, and for a brief moment the Rockies looked capable of pulling off one of those strange Monday-night baseball crimes that make no sense by sunrise.

Instead, the Dodgers simply waited for Colorado’s bullpen to begin unraveling.

Will Smith and Hyeseong Kim opened the inning with walks before Miguel Rojas — pressed into pinch-hit duty because the Dodgers are currently treating Max Muncy’s wrist like a priceless museum artifact — was hit by a pitch to load the bases.

Shohei Ohtani followed with a ground ball that was initially ruled a double play before replay overturned the call at first base, allowing Smith to score. Ohtani’s hustle down the line mattered there. A fraction slower and the inning likely dies with a double play intact. Instead, the overturned call cracked the door open just enough for Mookie Betts to tie the game with a sacrifice fly and Freddie Freeman to deliver the go-ahead double to right.

Andy Pages followed with an RBI single for insurance and, just like that, another game had slipped away from Colorado.

The Dodgers were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position before the inning began, but by the end of it the game belonged to them anyway. That has become part of what makes this lineup exhausting for opponents: the avalanche rarely announces itself in advance.

Emmet Sheehan quietly gave the Dodgers the type of outing that made the comeback possible in the first place.

The right-hander took a 104-mph comebacker off his right shoulder in the fourth inning and, for a moment, it appeared the Dodgers might suddenly need six innings from a bullpen that has been trying to conserve innings and protect arms wherever possible.

Instead, Sheehan stayed in the game, absorbed the damage and completed six innings while striking out eight.

“The ball caught me on the muscle,” Sheehan said afterward. “It stunned me for a moment, but it wasn’t anything to worry about.”

Then came the sentence every old-school pitching coach probably appreciated hearing.

“It’s our job as starters to get through as many innings as possible, take the load off the bullpen and put up zeroes.”

Sheehan allowed two runs and five hits overall and, after the comebacker, seemed to settle into a rhythm rather than unravel from it. A few pitches got away from him, particularly the sacrifice fly and Tovar’s earlier RBI sequence, but the efficiency mattered more.

It also mattered because the Dodgers bullpen looked human for exactly one batter before immediately returning to form.

Kyle Hurt surrendered Tovar’s solo homer in the seventh, snapping the historic scoreless streak, but Tanner Scott, Will Klein, Alex Vesia and Blake Treinen quickly restored order afterward. Treinen recorded the final out for his first save of the season, and even the bullpen’s lone blemish somehow felt temporary.

The Dodgers are playing with a growing sense of inevitability right now. They do not need to dominate every inning. They simply need the game to remain within reach long enough for the lineup to create one opening.

Against teams like Colorado, one opening tends to become four runs in a hurry.

Kiké Hernández’s return from elbow surgery also quietly added another layer to the roster Monday. Hernández collected an RBI double in his season debut and looked immediately comfortable moving around the infield again, which is exactly the type of depth the Dodgers have spent years weaponizing against exhausted opponents by midseason.

The Rockies, meanwhile, are discovering what much of the league already knows:

You can play the Dodgers evenly for six innings.

You just better hope the seventh never arrives.