Rockies match season-long winning streak, walk off Dodgers for 4-3 win

DENVER — Rockies Report, Game 125:

ROCKIES BOTTOM LINE: Warming Bernabel slapped a ground ball up the middle to drive home Ezequiel Tovar with one out in the ninth inning, giving the Rockies a walk-off 4-3 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Coors Field on Monday night.

Bernabel’s single off Los Angeles reliever Justin Wrobleski came two pitches after Tovar dropped a pop-fly double to right field just out of the reach of Los Angeles right fielder Teoscar Hernandez, who sprinted forward but couldn’t corral the ball. Tovar sprinted to second for the double, setting up Bernabel for the game-winning heroics.

SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS#Rockies x @denvermattress pic.twitter.com/GUT5hCc6qb

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) August 19, 2025

Tovar’s ninth-inning double was his second hit of the night, following his seventh-inning home run off Yoshinobu Yamamoto that tied the game at 3-apiece.

The Tovar homer — his seventh of the season — ended Yamamoto’s domination of the Rox. Before that shot over the right-field Bridich Barrier, the Japanese standout and his mesmerizing curveball had retired 13-consecutive Rockies since Ryan Ritter’s 2-RBI single in the third inning had forged a 2-2 tie.

Colorado’s bullpen had to carry much of the freight of keeping Los Angeles’ lineup in check after Kyle Freeland left following just four innings and 72 pitches of work due to blisters.

Jaden Hill relieved Freeland and found himself immediately tossed into the deep end, facing Shohei Ohtani, who had a pair of singles in his first two at-bats. But Ezequiel Tovar backed him up with a lunging stab of Ohtani’s line drive up the middle, starting a 1-2-3 inning against the top of the Dodgers order.

But Hill couldn’t escape unscathed in the sixth. A leadoff walk of Freddie Freeman came back to haunt him, as Alex Freeland drove him home with a two-out double, nudging the Dodgers in front, 3-2.

But Tovar’s homer in the seventh started yet another Rox comeback, something that has been a trend during their recent run of six wins in seven games.

TOVI POP 💥 pic.twitter.com/k1lfUIXmgu

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) August 19, 2025

Rockies pitchers finished the night with 12 strikeouts, one off the team’s season high.

The Rox matched their season-long winning streak of June 15-18. Colorado is 36-89.

ROCKIES STARTER’S REPORT

From the outset, Kyle Freeland wasn’t comfortable.

“A blood blister under his fingernail that kept growing and growing,” interim manager Warren Schaeffer said, adding that Freeland had been dealing with it since the start of the contest. As is Freeland’s wont, he battled through it as long as he could.

The amazing thing was that Freeland’s best work came toward the end of his night as discomfort mounted. In the third inning, he escaped a two-on, one out threat by getting an Alex Call ground ball for a 6-4-3 double play; in the fourth inning, he needed just 10 pitches to dispatch the Dodgers, twice freezing batters for called third strikes.

However, when he warmed up for the fifth inning, he paused after a few warmup pitches.

“It just started blowing up on me in the third inning,” Freeland said. There really wasn’t one particular pitch that it was bugging me on, it was kind of all pitches, and just trying to eat as many innings as I possibly could after it started blowing up, and that was really just one more inning before I couldn’t feel it anymore.”

Freeland finished with six hits and a walk over four innings, striking out five.

Victor Vodnik earned credit for the win; Hill pitched two innings and allowed a run; Luis Peralta and Juan Mejia delivered scoreless frames.

BITS AND PIECES

IT WAS DECIDED FOR THE ROCKIES WHEN: Bernabel delivered the game-ending RBI single for his first hit of the night.

NUMBER TO NOTE: 5 — Times that Rockies pitchers caught Dodgers batters looking for called third strikes on Monday night.

WHAT’S NEXT: Austin Gomber looks for his first win of the season in the second game of the series on Tuesday at Coors Field. First pitch is at 6:40 p.m. MDT.

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