Years ago, when Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax were at the top of the Dodgers’ pitching rotation, Drysdale missed a game to attend to some personal business. Koufax pitched a no-hitter that day.
When told about the achievement, Drysdale had one question: “Did he win?”
That’s a fair question for the current Dodgers pitching staff as well. Because Monday, for the second time in three days, the Dodgers took a no-hitter into the ninth inning.
They lost the first one. And while they won the second, it wasn’t easy with the Colorado Rockies bringing the tying run to the plate three times before Tanner Scott got the last out to preserve a 3-1 win at Dodger Stadium.
The victory kept the Dodgers a game ahead of the San Diego Padres in the National League West with 18 games left in the regular season.
It was Tyler Glasnow who flirted with history Monday, pitching seven hitless innings before turning the game over to relievers Blake Treinen and Scott. On Saturday, a similar scenario unfolded when Yoshinobu Yamamoto came within an out of a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles before giving up a home run to Jackson Holliday.
He left at that point, only to see Treinen and Scott give up three more runs in a 4-3 Dodger loss.
So when Scott gave up a double to Ryan Ritter to start the ninth — ending the no-hitter and drawing boos from those who remained from the crowd of 48,433 — manager Dave Roberts said he hoped he wasn’t witnessing déjà vu all over again.
“I try to not think like that,” he said.
Given how the Dodgers bullpen has struggled recently, it was hard not to.
Scott, however, quickly settled down, retiring the next two batters on soft grounders before Hunter Goodman lined out to Max Muncy at third to end the game and give Glasnow (2-3) his first win since March.
It was a victory that was long overdue.
Glasnow pitched six no-hit innings his last time out only to wind up with the loss when the Dodgers (80-64) failed to score behind him. That’s become an all-too-common problem for Glasnow, who has the second-lowest ERA in the Dodgers rotation but has received the weakest support with an average of 3½ runs per start.
Mookie Betts hits a two-run single in the seventh inning during the Dodgers’ 3-1 win over the Rockies on Monday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers’ hitters didn’t even match that modest number Monday. But when Mookie Betts delivered a two-run single in the seventh, breaking a 1-1 tie, it left Glasnow in position for the win.
“It’s always good to score runs,” he said with a smile.
Smiles have been hard to come by after Glasnow’s starts. In only three of his 15 starts have the Dodgers trailed by more than a run when he has exited the game. Yet in five of those starts, the Dodgers didn’t even score a run behind him, which explains why he went more than 160 days between wins.
“It is what it is,” he shrugged. “But yeah, they put some at bats together, and we ended up winning.”
Glasnow, who was held out of his last scheduled start with a sore back, was pitching for the first time in 10 days and was strong from the start, striking out the side in the first — although he needed 18 pitches to do it. He fanned the side again in the sixth, but in between he gave up a second-inning run on Jordan Beck’s leadoff walk, a stolen base and two long outs, the second Kyle Farmer’s sacrifice fly to the left-field wall.
What he didn’t give up was a hit. Glasnow said he was aware he had a no-hitter as the game progressed, but he also knew he probably wouldn’t be allowed to finish it.
“My pitch count was pretty high,” said the right-hander, who finished with a season-high 105, striking out 11 and walking two. “I don’t know how many pitches I was going to be allowed to throw.”
Also working against him were his two stints on the injured list this season and his recent back issues.
“Obviously I want to stay in, no matter what my pitch count is,” he said. “[But] given my, like, track record, I kind of understand why. I respect the decision.”
For five innings, Colorado starter Chase Dollander, who came in 2-12 with a 6.77 ERA, nearly matched Glasnow. The Dodgers didn’t get their first baserunner until the third inning and didn’t have a hit until the fifth, when Michael Conforto led off with a single to left.
Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow delivers in the fifth inning Monday against the Rockies.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Dollander faced just three batters over the minimum before leaving with an apparent injury after walking Ben Rortvedt to start the sixth. Reliever Juan Mejia walked the first batter he faced and an out later Freddie Freeman bounced a high-hopper over Farmer and down the right-field line for a tying double.
An inning later the Dodgers scored two more off Angel Chivilli (1-5) to go in front. With two out and a runner on first, Shohei Ohtani doubled to right to bring Betts to the plate. After falling behind 0-2, he picked out a belt-high slider and drove it into the center to break the tie.
With the Dodgers safely in front and Glasnow out of the game, the drama turned to the no-hitter. There have been 22 combined no-hitters in major league history, with the last one by the Dodgers coming against the Padres in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2018.
That appeared in reach when Treinen breezed through the eighth. But Ritter, the Rockies’ No. 9 hitter, one-hopped the wall in left on Scott’s second pitch of the ninth. The ball appeared catchable off the bat, but Alex Call, inserted for defensive purposes, turned the wrong way, costing him any chance to make a play.
Scott retired the side on two ground outs and a liner to Muncy before celebrating with Rortvedt, who was called up from the minors Thursday and has come within four outs of catching two no-hitters in his first three starts.
“It’s not me, it’s these guys,” he said. “I’m doing my homework as much as I can, trying to be prepared. The pitchers are prepared. It’s just the fruit of that labor at that point.
“It’s not easy. They’re making it look easy.”