LOS ANGELES – Gavin Stone is starting to look like something most young starting pitchers can’t pull off – reliable.
The rookie right-hander held the Colorado Rockies scoreless for five innings Sunday as the Dodgers won, 4-0, to complete their abbreviated homestand before packing for the East Coast again.
The Dodgers returned from a six-game trip to the Eastern Time Zone (Cincinnati and New York) just long enough to take two of three games from the Rockies and then head back east (to Pittsburgh and New York this time).
The scoreless start was Stone’s second in a row. He also went seven innings without allowing a run against the Mets last week. In the two starts, Stone allowed seven hits, walked two and struck out 13 in the 12 innings.
Sunday’s start probably could have been longer but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he would be “mindful” that Stone was pitching on four days’ rest – the standard for starting pitchers around the league but something the Dodgers have only asked their starters to do four times this season (Stone twice, Bobby Miller and James Paxton once each).
He came out after 75 pitches Sunday but Stone had gone at least six innings in each of his previous six starts and allowed one run or none in five of those six starts.
The Rockies hardly threatened against Stone in his five innings. They didn’t get a runner past first base until the fifth inning when shortstop Mookie Betts tried to take Alan Trejo’s ground ball and turn a double play himself instead of flipping the ball to second baseman Miguel Rojas for the turn. Betts’ rushed throw bounced well short of first baseman Freddie Freeman who couldn’t corral it, turning it into a forceout.
Charlie Blackmon followed by bouncing a double down the first base line to put runners at second and third with two outs. Stone stranded them when Ezequiel Tovar lined out to Freeman.
Reliable is not a word you would use to describe the Dodgers’ offense these days. The lineup produced sporadically over the second half of May and managed just nine runs on this mini-homestand.
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Betts got things started with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first, his 52nd career leadoff home run but his first of any kind in 50 at-bats. Starting to come out of his own May gray, Freeman also homered in the first inning.
That was nearly the extent of the Dodgers’ offense. They pushed across another run in the third on one of Freeman’s three walks, a walk of Andy Pages and an RBI single by Miguel Rojas. Freeman drove in another run with a sacrifice fly in the eighth after singles by Jason Heyward and Austin Barnes.
Stone passed the early 3-0 lead on to the Dodgers’ bullpen. Michael Grove, Alex Vesia and Daniel Hudson combined to complete the shutout, allowing just one more hit over the final four innings.
