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?”
The Dodgers were three outs away from a combined no-hitter Monday, then had to hang on for a 3-1 win over the Colorado Rockies.
It was the second time in three days the Dodgers took a no-hitter into the ninth. They lost the other one.
Tyler Glasnow was brilliant over seven no-hit innings, striking out 11. Reliever Blake Treinen pitched a perfect eighth before Ryan Ritter broke up the no-hitter by lining Tanner Scott’s third pitch to left field for a double. The ball appeared catchable off the bat, but left fielder Alex Call turned the wrong way, costing him any chance to make a play.
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Scott then retired the side on two groundouts and a liner to third baseman Max Muncy.
Mookie Betts’ tiebreaking two-run single in the seventh propelled the Dodgers to their 80th win of the season.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one out away from a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles on Saturday when he gave up a home run to Jackson Holliday.
Yamamoto was pulled after 112 pitches and the bullpen gave up three more runs in a 4-3 Dodgers loss.
Glasnow left after 105 pitches. He walked two. It was the second straight start in which Glasnow hadn’t given up a hit through at least six innings.
Glasnow (2-3) struck out the side in the first — although he needed 18 pitches to do it — and again in the sixth. 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.
Yet for five innings Colorado starter Chase Dollander (2-12, 6.43 ERA) was almost as good. 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.
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 came on to walk the first batter he faced. Two at-bats later, Freddie Freeman bounced a high-hopper over first baseman Kyle Farmer and down the right-field line for a tying double.
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But Mejia escaped further damage when he got Conforto to ground out with the bases loaded. Still, the one run was more offense than the Dodgers gave Glasnow in his last two starts. Entering Monday, the Dodgers averaged just 3½ runs of support in Glasnow’s 14 previous starts, lowest for any Dodger starter.
In the seventh, Rockies reliever Angel Chivilli hit Andy Pages with a pitch with one out and after Rortvedt popped out, Ohtani doubled to right, sending Pages to third.
Betts followed with a two-out, two-strike single, extending his streak of reaching base safely to 14 games.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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