Steve Webb
DENVER, CO — Sooner or later, Coors Field comes to collect its debt. And Thursday was that day for the Dodgers. After getting three straight lights-out performances from three rookie pitchers, Los Angeles couldn’t get out of Denver without there being one slugfest. And unfortunately, they were on the losing end of this one, to a tune of 14-5.
It was Ryan Yarbrough who had to shoulder the brunt of the damage. The lefty has pitched quite well for the team since his acquistion, but his low-velo stuff just didn’t survive the high altitude. He got hit and got hit hard. Chuck Nazty hit a lead-off homerun in the bottom of the first on Yarbrough’s second pitch of the game and it went downhill from there.
Yarbrough gave up runs in every inning he pitched in: one in the first, two in the second, four in the third, and two more in the fourth. And that was about enough for Mr. Yarbrough on the day. In all it was nine runs on eleven hits, which included three home runs. A little troubling for a guy the Dodgers were hoping to take down big innings in October.
After posting a 1.86 ERA in August, Yarbrough is now at 4.71 in September. Not trending in the right direction. Dave Roberts will have to keep an eye on him, as he will with Caleb Ferguson, who got shelled later in the game. Both these guys are going to need to prove that they can get outs this weekend in San Francisco before they get into high leverage in the postseason.
The one morsel of good news is the continued late season resurgence of J.D. Martinez. After his first inning home run, his 32nd of the year, J.D. now stands at 100 RBI. This is the first time he’s reached that plateau since 2019. In September alone, Martinez is hitting .354 with six dingers and 20 RBI and an OPS of 1.089. He might just be an “it” factor in October. While teams are so focused on not getting beat by Betts and Freeman, J.D. might sneak in and tear the house down. We’ll see.
“It’s special,” Martinez said of the 100 RBI. “I’ve been on a lot of teams with really, really good offenses and I’ve never been on a team that has done that. It just speaks volumes of this team and how deep we are up and down the lineup.”
With his performance on Thursday, Martinez joins Mookie Betts (106), Max Muncy (105), and Freddie Freeman (101) as Dodgers who’ve driven in 100 runs this season. This makes this quartet only the fourth since 2000 to have four players hit the century mark in RBI in the same season. And, it’s the first time in franchise history that the feat has been accomplished.
“It’s really impressive,” Dodger manager Dave Roberts said. “It just speaks to how talented these guys are. You gotta get guys on base, but the object of the game still is to score runs. You gotta produce runs. You gotta score runs and prevent runs. So for those four guys, they’ve had fantastic seasons. I tip my hat to them.”
Stuck on 98 wins after the split in Colorado, the Dodgers will need to take two out of three from the Giants in San Francisco to read 100 wins. And though their final record doesn’t make much difference when it comes to the National League playoffs, it could matter if and when the Dodgers make it to the World Series. The Orioles have 100 wins already, and the Dodgers still have a chance to get home field in the Fall Classic if they can pass the Birds on the weekend. Granted, it’s not a lot to play for, but it’s something to make the weekend more interesting.
The series in San Francisco gets under way from Oracle Park on Friday at 7:15. It will be Lance Lynn, Clayton Kershaw, and Bobby Miller getting in their final tune-ups before meaningful baseball resumes in the NLDS. Let’s finish strong, boys!
