Bats end scoreless funk in LA: 'We've got to get going'

LOS ANGELES -- Hunter Goodman battled after falling behind 0-2 in the count to Dodgers reliever Anthony Banda in the top of the 7th inning on Monday night at Dodger Stadium. He laid off a slider in the dirt on the third pitch and also on two fastballs, one elevated and one outside. He fouled off another fastball inside to stay alive.

Then, Goodman found his pitch.

He turned on a 94.3 mph fastball from Banda right down the middle, sending it flying 402 feet into the batter's eye in center field to bring the Rockies to within two runs of the Dodgers.

And though that would end up being the closest the Rox would get to Los Angeles in their 5-3 loss, it was a sign of the bats finally showing some life.

"I’ve had a rough stretch of series, and getting that one was good for me,” Goodman said. “Just trying to spark something with the team. We’ve got to get going."

It’s taken a while, but it looks like the Rockies might be starting to do just that.

They entered the day with 27 consecutive scoreless innings, three shy of a franchise record set in 2010. After tying the mark with three hitless frames to start Monday’s game, Nick Martini seemingly set the table with a leadoff double in the top of the fourth. The Rockies’ first run since the eighth inning of Thursday’s game against the Brewers was just 180 feet away with no outs.

Up next, Kyle Farmer grounded out.

Then Ryan McMahon struck out.

Michael Toglia followed with a strikeout of his own, stranding Martini at second as the team made history for all the wrong reasons.

The Rockies finally broke through in the sixth -- ending the streak at 32 innings -- when Martini reached first on an infield single that deflected off the glove of Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy. Farmer drove him in when he identified a 3-2 sinker from Dustin May inside and jumped on it to send the ball bounding down the third-base line for an RBI double.

"Luckily I sunk the hands in and didn't barrel it, but got it through the infield,” Farmer said. “That's hitting. Sometimes you get lucky. And I got lucky on that one."

From that point on, the Rockies started to put it together at the plate.

Mickey Moniak laced a one-out single in the seventh before Goodman’s bomb. Zac Veen, Ezequiel Tovar and McMahon all got on base either via walk or a hit-by-pitch, in Tovar’s case.

Farmer rapped another double in the eighth. Moniak and Sean Bouchard both got base hits in the ninth to put the tying run aboard.

"It was good to see a little bit of life tonight in the bats towards the middle part of the game,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “Had the winning run at the plate in the ninth inning. Would have been nice to get a big hit there against [Tanner] Scott, but it didn't happen. But I thought overall, as the game progressed, we were right there with the Dodgers.”

They were right there, but they weren’t quite there yet.

The Dodgers put up a season-high 10 hits, all of them in the first six innings. Starter Antonio Senzatela gave up nine of them -- along with four earned runs -- in his 4 1/3 innings.

"He battled. Just, I think, too many pitches up in the strike zone,” Black said. “The Dodgers are a good club, good offense, so Senza hung in there as best he could.”

While the Rockies got the scoreless monkey off their back, there remains a lot of work to do. It’s a young ballclub, but veterans like Martini and Farmer have been here before.

"I've been through a lot of ups and downs, more downs than ups,” Farmer said. “I'm a big believer in positivity. Visualizing good things happening even when they're going bad. That's what you've got to do when you're struggling, and it's what I'm trying to tell everybody.”