LOS ANGELES — Jimmy Herget walked Max Muncy on purpose to open the 11th, not because he was scared of him specifically, but because that’s what you do with the winning run on deck and nobody out. Tommy Edman bunted both runners into scoring position anyway. That left Herget with no more outs to give away and Dalton Rushing standing in the box, a hitter who had already tortured him twice that night, a double in the third that set up a Shohei Ohtani homer, another double in the fourth that kept a rally breathing. Rushing didn’t need a second chance to make it three. A line drive up the middle, Teoscar Hernández across the plate, ballgame. Dodgers 8, Rockies 7, and a series opener that spent four hours refusing to end finally did, on the bat of the guy who’d been doing damage all night long.
That’s the story of this game. Not the blown six-run lead. Not the ninth-inning meltdown. Rushing, again and again, at the plate when it mattered, and this time Colorado had run out of outs to spend trying to pitch around him.
The walk-off, up close
Teoscar Hernández started the 11th on second base under the extra-innings runner rule, which meant Herget was pitching from behind before he’d even thrown a pitch. The intentional walk to Muncy was standard stuff, load the bases, keep the double play in order. Tommy Edman’s sacrifice bunt erased that plan, moving Hernández to third and Muncy to second and putting the winning run 90 feet away with one out.
That’s when it became Rushing’s at-bat, and Rushing had been seeing the ball well all night, a double in the third, another in the fourth, a night that already had his name all over the box score before he ever got to the 11th. He didn’t miss the first fastball he saw, a clean line drive up the middle that had Hernández scoring easily and the Dodger Stadium crowd, thinned out by an 11-inning grind on a Monday night, making enough noise to make it feel like October. Rushing finished 3-for-5 with two doubles, two runs scored and the biggest hit of his season so far.
How it got to the 11th at all
The Dodgers didn’t need extra innings to look like the better team. Rushing’s third-inning double set up Ohtani’s 19th homer of the year, and a four-run fourth, three straight singles from Kyle Tucker, Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy, a Miguel Rojas sac fly, another Rushing double, and Ohtani cashing in with a two-run single, turned a one-run game into a 6-1 laugher. For six innings, this looked like a laugher, period.
Then it stopped looking easy. Ezequiel Tovar and the Rockies chipped away with a homer and a run apiece across the fifth and sixth, and the Dodgers bullpen, so sharp from Brock Stewart and Alex Vesia in relief of Eric Lauer, hit a wall when Tanner Scott took the ninth. Colorado strung together a double, another double from Cole Carrigg that plated two, and suddenly a six-run night was tied at 6-6, with only a heads-up relay throw nailing Hunter Goodman at the plate keeping it from getting worse. The lead changed hands twice more in extras before Rushing ended the debate for good.
The supporting cast
Ohtani’s night deserves its own headline on a normal day, three hits, a homer, four RBI, and he’ll get plenty of that after most Dodgers wins. Not this one. Edgardo Henriquez threw two scoreless innings to pick up his third win of the year, and Mookie Betts’s fielding-error-aided run in the 10th kept Los Angeles alive long enough to get to the moment that mattered. But Monday belonged to Rushing, the guy Colorado kept trying to pitch around and still had to face when the game was on the line.
Up next
The Dodgers and Rockies are back at it Tuesday, with Justin Wrobleski taking the mound against Michael Lorenzen. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. PT at Dodger Stadium.
