Defense wins games and defense loses games.
The Rockies were on both sides of that as they dropped the first game in Los Angeles 6-5 on Friday night.
Colorado lost a back-and-forth battle when Matt Kemp’s liner dropped between Carlos Gonzalez and Dexter Fowler and rolled to the wall, ending up in a triple.
Once again, the Rockies were their own worst enemy on the defensive side of the ball. The ball that Kemp hit maybe should not have been caught, but communication was lacking as Fowler and Gonzalez committed the cardinal sin of letting a ball get by them.
In the third inning, Ian Stewart made a great play to field a ball off the bat of Kemp down the third base line. However, his off-balance throw took Todd Helton off the first-base bag and resulted in an error. Kemp came around to score, putting the Dodgers up 2-1.
In the fifth inning with two outs, Casey Blake hit a hard line drive that hit off of Clint Barmes’ glove at second base and went into the outfield, scoring a run and continuing the inning. Barmes looked as if he misjudged the flight of the ball. He barely leaped and 99-out of-100 times, he catches the ball.
While the Rockies continued their surprising stretch of poor defense, the Dodgers showed how beneficial it can be to have great glove work backing up a starting pitcher.
With two runners in scoring position and no one out in the fifth inning, Todd Helton hit a laser that appeared headed for left field. With Fowler on second base, odds are the hit would have scored two runs.
Instead, Casey Blake stabbed the line drive, recording the first out of the inning. The Rockies ended up only scoring one run in the inning on a sacrifice fly off the bat of Gonzalez.
Clint Barmes led off the sixth inning with a screamer down the third base line. Blake showed that he could go both ways with his glove and stabbed the ball, turning a leadoff double into an out for the Dodgers.
While the Rockies showed resilience, they continued their struggles at Dodger Stadium.
Winning takes more than heart, it takes solid fundamentals, something the Rockies have been missing so far in 2010.
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