Dodgers’ Gavin Stone leads shutout win over Rockies (2024)

LOS ANGELES — Rookie pitchers are often like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re going to get. But the Dodgers have gotten something else from Gavin Stone – reliability.

The rookie right-hander held the Colorado Rockies scoreless for five innings on Sunday afternoon as the Dodgers won, 4-0, to complete their abbreviated homestand before packing for the East Coast again.

The Dodgers returned from a six-game trip to the Eastern Time Zone (Cincinnati and New York) just long enough to take two of three games from the Rockies and then head back east (to Pittsburgh and New York this time).

The scoreless start was Stone’s second in a row. He also went seven innings without allowing a run against the Mets last week. In the two starts, Stone allowed seven hits, walked two and struck out 13 in the 12 innings.

“Just the consistency and the certainty I guess is what you’re getting from him now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You know you’re going to get length. I cut him short a little bit today because of the regular rest and looking at where our ’pen was at today.

“He competes really well. He’s a smart player … and he’s a winner. He knows how to win and he craves winning. And to his credit he is sort of watching what everyone’s doing and his teammates and then applying things that fit for his own kind of arsenal and thought process.”

It’s a far cry from the overmatched Stone who took his lumps last year when the Dodgers’ disintegrating starting rotation thrust him into the majors before he was ready.

“It’s huge,” Stone said of the difference in his confidence level this year, something he attributes in part to watching the veteran starters surrounding him in the rotation. “Just watching the guys in the locker room and how they go about their day and how they handle failure and how they battle that and still stay so confident. I’m just learning from those guys.”

Sunday’s start probably could have been longer but Roberts said he would be “mindful” that Stone was pitching on four days of rest – the standard for starting pitchers around the league but something the Dodgers have only asked their starters to do four times this season (Stone twice, Bobby Miller and James Paxton once each).

He came out after 75 pitches on Sunday but Stone had gone at least six innings in each of his previous six starts and allowed one run or none in five of those six starts.

“This is my expectation every time out, honestly,” Stone said.

The Rockies hardly threatened in his five innings. They didn’t get a runner past first base until the fifth inning when shortstop Mookie Betts tried to take Alan Trejo’s ground ball and turn a double play himself instead of flipping the ball to second baseman Miguel Rojas for the turn. Betts’ rushed throw bounced well short of first baseman Freddie Freeman, who couldn’t corral it, turning it into a force out.

Charlie Blackmon followed by bouncing a double down the first base line to put runners at second and third with two outs. Stone stranded them when Ezequiel Tovar lined out to Freeman.

“I think I see the confidence level in executing pitches,” Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes said. “He’s not afraid to get beat in the zone now. He trusts his stuff. I think he’s got a good mix right now. His sinker is really good. His slider has come a long way. And he’s still got that wipeout changeup.”

The slider did a lot of the work against the Rockies. Stone threw that pitch 19 times and got nine of his 15 swings-and-misses on it.

“It felt good out of my hand. It felt good in catch play before the game,” Stone said. “I felt they were really a fastball-hitting team.”

Reliable is not a word you would use to describe the Dodgers’ offense these days. The lineup produced sporadically over the second half of May and managed just nine runs on this mini-homestand.

Betts got things started with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first, his 52nd career leadoff home run but his first of any kind in 50 at-bats. Starting to come out of his own May gray, Freeman also homered in the first inning – barely.

Rockies center fielder Brenton Doyle went back to the wall on Freeman’s drive and seemed to time his jump perfectly, reaching up and over the fence. He couldn’t hold the ball, though, and it glanced off his glove for the home run.

“I did,” Roberts said when asked if he thought Doyle had robbed Freeman of a homer. “That guy can really defend out there.”

That was nearly the extent of the Dodgers’ offense. They pushed across another run in the third on one of Freeman’s three walks, a walk of Andy Pages and an RBI single by Miguel Rojas. Freeman drove in another run with a sacrifice fly in the eighth after singles by Jason Heyward and Austin Barnes.

Stone passed the early 3-0 lead on to the Dodgers’ bullpen. Michael Grove, Alex Vesia and Daniel Hudson combined to complete the shutout, allowing just one more hit over the final four innings.