DENVER — The start of Thursday night’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Colorado Rockies was delayed for 1 hour and 50 minutes while members of the Coors Field grounds crew shoveled piles of hail from a late-afternoon storm into wheelbarrows and used leaf blowers to dry the remaining moisture from the outfield grass.
A heavy thunderstorm three hours before the scheduled first pitch turned the steps from the Dodgers’ dugout to the clubhouse into a water feature. Rain then morphed into macadamia-nut-sized hail that pelted the stadium, leaving what looked like foot-high snowdrifts on the floor of each dugout.
But once the crazy weather conditions cleared and the field was deemed playable, baseball’s most hitter-friendly park returned to its normal self, yielding a flurry of hits and runs, sending outfielders scurrying into the cavernous gaps and pitchers ducking for cover.
The teams combined for 14 runs and 19 hits — in the first five innings — the Dodgers doing most of the damage with a six-run, four-hit fourth. That outburst helped propel the Dodgers to a 14-3 victory over the Rockies and their sixth win in eight games.
The Rockies scored twice off Dodgers rookie right-hander Emmet Sheehan to take a 3-2 lead in the bottom of the third, with cleanup man Elias Diaz driving in both runs with a 258-foot bloop single to shallow left-center field.
But the Dodgers loaded the bases with no outs in the top of the fourth against Rockies starter Chase Anderson on Jason Heyward’s leadoff double to right-center and walks to Miguel Vargas and James Outman.
Austin Barnes struck out, but Mookie Betts, who doubled and scored in each of his first two at-bats, drove a sacrifice fly to center for a 3-3 tie. Freddie Freeman, with chants of “Freddie! Freddie!” filling the visiting park, lined an RBI single to right for a 4-3 lead.
Max Muncy greeted reliever Peter Lambert with a two-run double off the right-center field wall for a 6-3 lead, and J.D. Martinez, who clubbed two homers here Tuesday night to become the 156th member of baseball’s 300-home-run club, drove a two-run homer to right for an 8-3 lead.
The Dodgers weren’t done. Heyward led off the fifth with another double to right-center, and Outman lined a one-out single to center and took second when center fielder Randal Grichuk overthrew the cut-off man in the infield.
Barnes grounded out, but Betts walked, Freeman lined a two-run single to right for a 10-3 lead, and Muncy followed with an RBI single to right for an 11-3 lead.
The Dodgers added another run in the sixth when Vargas, mired in a two-for-46 slump, drove an RBI triple to right-center for a 12-3 lead.
Sheehan, the 23-year-old right-hander who was making his third big-league start, gave up three runs and seven hits in five innings, striking out five and walking none, to earn his second big-league win.
The Dodgers wasted no time punching in for their swing shift, Betts opening the game with a double off the right-center field wall. Freeman was hit by a pitch, and the Dodgers caught a break when Grichuk lost Martinez’s routine one-out fly ball in the twilight sky, the ball dropping well in front of him for an RBI single and a 1-0 Dodgers lead.
The Rockies countered with a run to tie the score in the bottom of the first, with Jurickson Profar leading off with a single to right-center, Ezequiel Tovar grounding into a fielder’s choice, Ryan McMahon lining a single to right-center to advance Tovar to third and Diaz driving a sacrifice fly to the warning track in center.
Betts, named a starter for his seventh All-Star Game earlier Thursday, jump-started the offense again in the third, leading off with a hustle double to left-center and sliding head-first into second. He took third on Freeman’s fly ball to center and scored on Martinez’s two-out RBI single to center for a 2-1 lead.
