LOS ANGELES — Dodger Stadium has seen more than its fair share of aces.
Friday night, Rockies left-hander Tyler Anderson fit that description to perfection in 3-1 win over the Dodgers.
Anderson pitched a career-high eight innings, allowing just four singles, striking out eight and walking one. He needed just 96 pitches to get the job done. His bread-and-butter pitchers are his fastball and changeup, but he had everything working against the Dodgers, including his cutter and an occasional curveball.
“It’s been a while since everything has really been on,” said Anderson, who improved to 5-3 and also rapped out two singles. “My last couple of starts had been pretty close, and my pitches were there, but I just made a couple of mistakes. Tonight I was able to eliminate mistakes.”
Closer Wade Davis gave up a two-out solo home run in the ninth to Justin Turner, but came back to strike out Cody Bellinger for the final out and his 23rd save.
Manager Bud Black described Anderson’s performance as “tremendous,” and was tempted to let Anderson go after the complete game. In the end, however, Black decided against it.
“There were a couple of (reasons),” Black said. “His spot was coming up in the order and I thought it was important to potentially get another run. And it was the fourth time coming back to (Chris) Taylor, (Kike) Hernandez and Turner. Lifetime, they’ve had pretty good numbers against ‘Andy’, even though he handled them tonight with six strikeouts against that group.
“But if there was something like a blooper, or a walk or something, then I have to go to Wade (Davis) with some traffic on the bases. I just wanted to give Wade a clean inning.”
Anderson definitely wanted to chase the first complete game of his career.
“Of course you want to go back out there,” he said. “The pitch count was in a reasonable range to go back out. If we could have saved our bullpen for an entire day, that would have been awesome. But you understand what (Black’s) thinking there.”
Anderson’s gem was backed up by solo homers from Pat Valaika, in the fifth, and Nolan Arenado, in the eighth. and Chris Iannetta, in the ninth. Arenado’s homer, a monster to left off left-handed reliever Scott Alexander, was his 20th, and his seventh in his last 10 games.
“All I was trying to do was hit the ball hard,” said Arenado, who went 2-for-4 for his 30th multi-hit game of the season. “(Alexander’s) a really good pitcher, with a big-time sinker. I think he just missed his spot and thank God I was able to hit it.”
Arenado, clearly, was more interested in talking about Anderson than about himself.
“It was awesome and I was very proud of him,” Arenado said. “He was ready to go tonight. He just pitched a great game. He was hitting his spots and you could see it from the beginning of the game. He just seemed locked in from the beginning.
“That was huge and we needed that. I think I said earlier today that we needed our starters to go deeper into games. He did that tonight.”
Anderson’s outing was the longest start by a Rockie this year, besting the 7 ⅓ innings Chad Bettis threw at Pittsburgh on April 17. Anderson’s previous career-high was 7 ⅓ innings on Sept. 6, 2016, vs. San Francisco. The Rockies have won seven of Anderson’s last nine road starts, with Anderson going 4-0 with a 2.42 ERA over that stretch. At home, he’s 1-3 with a 5.26 ERA in seven starts.
Dodgers left-hander Rich Hill almost matched Anderson. Almost. He pitched 6 ⅔ innings, giving up one run on six hits. He fanned 10 while walking none.
Valaika got a rare start at first base and made the most of it. He turned on Hill’s 1-2 fastball and lofted it just over the wall in left-center and just out of the reach of Hernandez’s glove. It was the first homer of the season for Valaika.
“It felt really good to put the barrel on the ball in a big-league game,” Valaika said. “It was good to get the lead, too.”
He hit 13 homers last season, and batted .328 with four homers as a pinch hitter, but after a terrible start to the season, he was optioned to Triple-A Albuquerque, where’s he’s spent most of the season. He was recalled to the big-league club last Saturday.
“When I went down (to Triple-A) I did a lot of work and a lot of adjustments that paid off,” Valaika said. “It was just one swing, but I can build on that. I feel good up there, which is nice. Every pitch, I feel like I have a chance. Tonight it was a pitch that I usually struggle with — a high fastball — and I got it out. So that just shows I’m improving.”
It was Valaika’s first home run since Sept. 24, 2017, at San Diego and the UCLA product’s second homer ever at Dodger Stadium. The California native’s first career homer came at Dodger Stadium on Sept. 24, 2016.
