Rockies Hit Three Homers, Beat Dodgers 7-1

Carlos Gonzalez, Daniel Descalso, and Nolan Arenado all homered for Colorado and the Rockies defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 7-1 on a night the organization honored the 1965 world championship team led by Sandy Koufax.

Gonzalez has been in hibernation to start the season, but is finally heating up for Colorado. Just 48 hours after hitting the game-winning three-run home run in the ninth inning of Thursday's game, Gonzalez went 2-for-4 with a homer and two runs scored on Saturday.

"Anybody can have bad months," said Gonzalez of his slow start to the season. "I've seen myself hit .200 and then hit .300 by the end of the season. That's my goal now. I'm going to do my best, and whatever happens, happens.

Gonzalez underwent season-ending knee surgery last August and hadn't faced big-league pitching in nearly six months before the season began.

"He's one of the best in the game, but he hasn't been doing as good this year," said Dodgers starter and former 2009 Cy Young winner Zack Greinke. "I didn't want to nibble around him that early, so I threw him a fastball and it was a terrible idea.

Jorge De La Rosa was resplendent for the Rockies pitching a two-hit shutout over 7.1 innings for his first win of the season.

"I was attacking the hitters more aggressively today," De La Rosa said. "The way I threw against them last time I was a little wild. My changeup was working, but I mixed up all my pitches."

De La Rosa (1-2) was dominant retiring 18 consecutive batters after giving up a leadoff double to Kike Hernandez to start the game. De La Rosa had a chance to go for the complete game shutout, but appeared to pull his groin after fielding a grounder in the eighth inning.

"He [De La Rosa] was throwing all his first pitches for strikes and mixing them up really well," Hernandez said. "He did a good job tonight and we couldn't make the adjustments."

Hernandez made an incredible play in center field in the top half of the 4th inning when he tracked down a deep fly ball on the warning track before crashing face first into the wall.

"My face feels fine," joked Hernandez. "But we're still waiting on the MRI results on the wall itself, so hopefully the wall will be OK."

"Oh, hi wall." -@kikehndez probably pic.twitter.com/rNMJOL7l0B — Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 17, 2015

Greinke suffered his first loss of the season allowing just one run on four hits in six innings.

Greinke (5-1) received no run support for his efforts on Saturday. Other than the first inning homer he allowed to Gonzalez, Greinke was once again in Cy Young form striking out five before being lifted for a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the sixth.

Coming into the game, Greinke was riding a 10-game winning streak and had not lost since August 9th of 2014. In addition to having his career-best winning streak snapped, Greinke's phenomenal 20-start unbeaten streak and 16-game winning streak against National League West opponents also came to an end.

Greinke's last loss within the division was also against the Rockies back on September 28, 2013. Making it nearly two years since the right-hander lost to an NL West opponent. Despite the loss, Greinke still leads the major leagues in ERA at 1.52 on the year.

The Rockies did most of their damage off Southern California reliever Sergio Santos. Santos pitched the sixth and seventh allowing five runs on three hits (two of them homers). He did finish the inning with four strikeouts, becoming the sixth player in Dodgers history to accomplish the feat.

Kenley Jansen also struck out four albeit on 14 pitches a night earlier.

"His [Jansen's] was the better way to do it," joked Santos after the game. "Better to do it with no runs coming across."

Howie Kendrick hit a single in the seventh to extend his hitting streak to eight games.

The Dodgers streak of 10 consecutive home series win was snapped with the loss as the best Los Angeles can do is tie the series at 2-2 tomorrow.

Game Notes:
The Dodgers honored the 1965 World Series Championship team before the game as all fans in attendance received a replica World Series Ring. Members of the team including the great Sandy Koufax, Tommy Davis, Maury Wills, Wally Moon, Ron Perranoski, Wes Parker, Jeff Torborg, Ron Fairly, Jim Lefebvre, Al Ferrara and Sweet Lou Johnson all took part in the Old Timers Game.

Colorado's manager Walt Weiss returned to the Rockies dugout just three days after an emergency appendectomy had him in a local Los Angeles hospital.

Alejandro González Iñárritu the Oscar-winning director of Birdman was in attendance for the game.