Dodgers Go Flat at Coors, Lose, 7-1

Coors Field has yielded a bounty of runs for the Dodgers, who scored 51 times in six previous games in Colorado this season, batting .315 with seven home runs.

Thursday night, the place felt like Coors Lite.

The Dodgers managed only three hits and looked rather listless in a 7-1 loss to the Rockies before a crowd that was announced at 25,593 but felt and sounded about half that size.

The Dodgers, who have 16 games remaining, remained tied atop the National League wild-card standings with the San Francisco Giants. The Giants lost, 3-2, to the San Diego Padres in 10 innings Thursday.

Perhaps it was the thunderstorm that delayed the game for 53 minutes, or the library-like feel of the sparse crowd after playing three games against the Giants in the playoff-charged atmosphere of Pacific Bell Park this week, but the Dodgers seemed flat Thursday night.

Rookie right-hander Denny Stark was impressive, giving up one run and two hits and striking out three in seven innings to improve to 10-3, including 8-1 at home, but this was not Curt Schilling or Roy Oswalt on the mound.

The Dodgers failed to pressure Stark, and outside of Shawn Green’s home run in the seventh inning, they advanced only one runner to second base--Dave Roberts in the first inning.

Roberts singled and stole second but was stranded when Paul Lo Duca and Green struck out and Brian Jordan grounded out.

“It was an emotional series in San Francisco, and coming to an empty park is a bit of a letdown, but every guy here realizes what’s at stake,” Roberts said. “You don’t want to admit you had a letdown, because when you’re in a pennant race, you want to come out with full intensity. But Stark threw a good game, they made a lot of great plays, and we couldn’t get anything going.”

Colorado is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, but it was the Rockies, not the Dodgers, who looked like postseason contenders, coming up with several clutch hits and stifling the Dodgers with superb defensive plays.

Left fielder Ben Petrick made a spectacular diving catch of Lo Duca’s drive to the gap, robbing him of extra bases in the fourth inning; center fielder Jason Romano slammed into the wall as he caught Mark Grudzielanek’s drive in the fifth, and second baseman Terry Shumpert made a nice leaping catch of Lo Duca’s liner in the sixth.

For good measure, Petrick made a nice running catch of Green’s high fly ball to left-center, leaping to avoid a collision with center fielder Juan Pierre as he snagged the ball for the game’s final out.

“They made some of the best defensive plays against us that we’ve seen all year,” Dodger Manager Jim Tracy said.

“Stark pitched a good game, but he got some help.”

Offensively, the Rockies had little trouble solving left-hander Omar Daal, who went 4-0 with a 1.87 earned-run average in eight starts from July 20 to Aug. 31 but has been hit hard in his last two starts.

Daal gave up four runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings of a 6-1 loss to Houston last Saturday and five runs and seven hits in 3 2/3 innings Thursday night. He struck out three of the first four Rockies he faced, but his outing deteriorated quickly from there.

A single by the .231-hitting Shumpert, a walk to the .160-hitting Petrick and an RBI single by .226-hitting Juan Uribe gave Colorado a 1-0 lead in the second. The Rockies added three runs in the third on Gabe Kapler’s double, Todd Helton’s RBI single, walks to Shumpert and Petrick and Sandy Alomar’s two-run single.

When Stark smoked a double into the left-field corner to lead off the fourth, Daal stood on the mound, his hands on his hips, watching the ball in disgust. Stark later scored on Todd Zeile’s single for a 5-0 lead.

Green’s 42nd home run of the season made it 5-1 in the top of the seventh, but the Rockies got that run back and more when Shumpert homered off reliever Giovanni Carrara in the seventh and Kapler hit an RBI single off Robert Ellis in the eighth.

“Without question, our fate is in the hands of our pitching and defense,” Roberts said. “But it’s too much to ask for each [starter] to have a great outing every time out.

“Sometimes you’ve got to put up some runs and cover their backs.”