LOS ANGELES — Yu Darvish’s arsenal of pitches is bigger than there are names to describe them, a cacophony of grips and arm slots and darting movement. A batter who waits for something familiar will stare just long enough to see strike three.
“You can’t sit on pitches because he has 15 of them,” Colorado manager Bud Black said.
The Rockies resolved Thursday to jump on Darvish like they had Clayton Kershaw the night before, when they bushwhacked the Dodgers’ lefty ace for three runs in the first inning. Against the right-handed Darvish, Los Angeles’ No. 1B pitcher, the trade deadline acquisition that shocked the National League in July, the Rockies swung with impunity.
It just took them a few frames to connect. By the fifth inning of what turned into a 5-4 victory over the hard-skidding Dodgers, the Rockies weaved together four doubles for four runs off Darvish in a come-from-behind scorcher at Chavez Ravine.
“We sized him up after the first two or three innings,” Black said. “It looked like he was throwing more of his curveball. We identified that, what he was trying to do. The collective at-bats were solid. We strung it together.”
After Alexi Amarista doubled off Darvish in the fifth and Jonathan Lucroy walked, rookie pinch-hitter doubled to center field to score two. doubled to bring in Tapia. And doubled to plate Blackmon. They quickly turned a 4-1 deficit into a 5-4 lead.
“My plan was to get something going, to get started,” Amarista said. “We’re just grinding through at-bats. Hitting is contagious, like anything else in life. And we’re doing that the last two days. Our approach is solid.”
Darvish was yanked. On back-to-back nights, the Rockies took down the two best pitchers on the best team in the National League. At 76-65, Colorado remained 3 games ahead of the Brewers and Cardinals in the NL wild-card standings. Both those teams won Friday night.
Darvish struck out six, becoming the fastest player in baseball’s history to reach 1,000 career strikeouts, both by games (128) and innings (812).
But the Rockies’ takedown of Darvish was a definitive sequel to a victory over Kershaw. Over just 4 1/3 innings, they gouged the 31-year-old former star for five runs on five hits. was responsible for early damage, when he pushed a home run over the left-field wall in the first inning.
Gonzalez hit his 10th home run of the season, and after his seventh-inning shot Thursday, he has homers in back-to-back games at Dodger Stadium for the first time in his career. The Rockies haven’t done that since Ben Paulsen hit two in 2014.
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“You just have to look for the ball up and when itap up, it might not have the action it does when itap down,” Black said. “We have to be ready to hit on pitch one.”
His opposite, Rockies rookie right-hander German Marquez, struggled, but did Darvish better. The Dodgers blasted the 22-year-old Marquez for four runs in the first inning, on Justin Turner’s two-run homer to left field and Austin Barnes’ two-RBI single to right. L.A. sent nine batters to the plate in the first inning, aided by a rare error from second baseman DJ LeMahieu as he charged for a slow-roller.
But Marquez righted himself. He did not allow another run through four innings. helped him with a sprinting, diving catch coming in on Joc Pederson’s blooper to left in the third.
The Rockies sent nine batters to the plate in the fifth, forcing Darvish to the bench. And, like Thursday, Colorado won a battle of bullpens. Rockies lefty quick-pitched Turner to strike him out looking and end the sixth. Rusin allowed just one hit in two innings.
“That was an important win,” Rusin said. “Just try not to let them hit it.”
Greg Holland pitched a fifth consecutive hitless ninth inning after setting down the meat of the Dodgers’ order with Turner, Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig. It was Holland’s 38th save, most in the NL.
The Dodgers (92-49) lost a 13th game in their past 14. Discomfort is multiplying in Los Angeles. A sellout crowd of 53,632 at Dodger Stadium booed reliever Pedro Baez before he even threw a pitch in the sixth inning.
The Rockies, though, are gaining momentum, shifting ahead from a Thursday ambush of Kershaw for another needed victory over Darvish.
“That left a really good taste in our mouth, no doubt about it,” Black said. “Coming off (Thursday), which was emotional, we had to stay up. A lot of times after a big win, there can be a let-down. Other times, it can be a momentum builder. You never know.”
