LOS ANGELES — Bud Black’s dad, Harry, a would-be professional hockey player still at USC, heard a Hollywood call-out for acting talent in 1938. David O. Selznick needed soldiers for a burgeoning little war film he was producing, and Harry earned a role.
He played a dead solider lying on the streets of Atlanta in “Gone With the Wind.”
When Bud brought his floundering team of postseason hopefuls back to Los Angeles on Thursday, to face a Dodgers team with, by far, the best record in baseball, the Rockies were near the same role. They had lost five games in a week, falling perilously close to losing a National League wild-card playoff berth. Dead men walking.
“These are the times when you just have to go up there and say screw it and trust who you are and let it eat,” Rockies star Nolan Arenado said Thursday.
After Mark Reynolds hit an eighth-inning grand slam Sunday that put an exclamation mark on an 8-1 victory and a four-game sweep of the Dodgers in front of 50,161 fans, the Rockies suddenly have life. They are stomping through their toughest road trip of the season, and just in time.
“This place was bumping the whole series,” Reynolds said. “These are the kinds of baseball games that get your juices flowing.”
The Rockies (78-65) swept a four-game series at Dodger Stadium for the first time since 1993. They won for the sixth time in their past seven games, handing the home team its 10th consecutive loss. The once-unstoppable Dodgers (92-51) have now lost 15 of their past 16. The Cardinals and Brewers also won Sunday, so the Rockies remained three games ahead of them for the second wild-card berth.
The Rockies next travel to Arizona to face the Diamondbacks, who are five games ahead in the race to host the NL’s play-in game.
BOX SCORE: Rockies 8, Dodgers 1
“This will continue to grow into an every-pitch type of situation,” Black said of the rising stakes of a playoff race. “That’s what you want. Hopefully we can build on this.”
Tyler Chatwood, the Rockies’ most experienced starter, was relegated to the bullpen one month ago. But he pitched Sunday like a rotation anchor of old, blowing past a pitch limit to throw five scoreless innings on just five hits allowed. He outdueled Dodgers lefty Rich Hill, who two weeks earlier carried a no-hitter into the 10th inning at Pittsburgh.
The Rockies pegged Hill for two runs and four hits over five innings. Arenado’s single up the middle in the first inning scored Charlie Blackmon. Arenado’s rainbow shot down the left-field line to lead off the third gave him 32 homers this season. The Rockies had a 2-0 lead.
Chatwood was rolling. He forced Curtis Granderson to fly out to end the third. But after throwing 60 pitches over three innings in an intentionally abbreviated start last week against the Giants, Chatwood returned for the fourth. And the fifth. He struck out Hill and leadoff batter Chris Taylor to end the fourth. And he went 1-2-3 against Corey Seager, Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger, the Dodgers’ big boppers, in the fifth.
Since his three-inning outing last week, Chatwood told Black and his coaches there was more action in his arm, more innings to reach. So they lengthened his leash. His 75 pitches Sunday, heavy on two-seam sinking fastballs, gave Chatwood his seventh victory this season.
“That is probably the max number of pitches I could throw,” he said. “Anytime your team is rolling, you want to keep them rolling. So you get out there and help us win games, especially when we need them.”
Then the eighth inning blew up. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts brought in 23-year-old Walker Buehler, L.A.’s top prospect who was pitching in his second career game. After DJ LeMahieu singled to lead off, Buehler walked Arenado and Carlos Gonzalez to load the bases. Then with a full count, Reynolds nailed a grand slam to the left-field bleachers, his 29th homer of the season.
“I knew he didn’t want to walk me. I knew he was going to throw a strike. But he’s throwing 100 mph,” Reynolds said. “That’s tough to hit even if you know it’s coming. It was one of those swings where you don’t know how you did it, but it worked out.”
Trevor Story contributed a solo home run in the ninth. Carlos Estevez, Mike Dunn and Scott Oberg, who struck out three Dodgers for the second consecutive day, combined for three scoreless innings. Adam Ottavino, after giving up Alex Verdugo’s first career home run as L.A. dodged a shutout, struck out two in the ninth.
In four days, the Rockies took down the Dodgers’ four best pitchers: three-time NL Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw, prized trade deadline acquisition Yu Darvish, and Alex Wood and Hill, two lefties who flummoxed Colorado this year. The Rockies flew Sunday night to Phoenix, where they will face Diamondbacks ace Zack Greinke on Monday.
“We’re not surprised we won this series,” said Arenado, who hit .412 (14-for-34) with four homers and 10 RBIs at Dodger Stadium this season. “I think it’s a surprise to everyone else. We believe this is the type of baseball we could be playing. For a while, we weren’t. But we expected to win this series.”
