Eli Whitney | April 19, 2026

Saturday night at Coors Field had all the makings of another difficult evening. The Rockies were coming off a 7-1 drubbing at the hands of the same Los Angeles Dodgers team, a sell-out crowd of 47,925, and the defending World Series champions had taken the lead before Colorado had recorded a single out. Troy Johnston had other ideas.

With the Rockies trailing 3-2 in the sixth inning, Johnston delivered the biggest hit of the night – a two-run double to center that scored Hunter Goodman and Ezequiel Tovar and gave Colorado a 4-3 lead they would not relinquish. Brennan Bernardino, Jaden Hill, and Victor Vodnik combined for 3.1 scoreless innings to preserve the win and hand the Dodgers just their fifth loss of the season. Colorado improves to 8-13.

The night started about as badly as it possibly could have for Ryan Feltner. A Johnston throwing error on the very first batter of the game allowed Shohei Ohtani to reach first, and Kyle Tucker promptly turned on the first pitch he saw and drove it 435 feet to right-center for a two-run homer. Dalton Rushing added a solo shot in the second to push the lead to 3-1, and Feltner found himself in a two-run hole before he’d had the chance to settle. What happened next was the more revealing part of his evening. He worked around a Tucker single and a Freddie Freeman walk in the third without allowing a run, then retired the Dodgers in order in the fourth and fifth, before giving up a Freeman triple in the sixth that brought Bernardino in to finish the inning. When Bernardino struck out Muncy to end the threat, the damage was contained. Feltner finished with 5.2 innings, five hits, two earned runs, and a season-high five strikeouts. “I didn’t honestly see a struggle early,” Schaeffer said afterward. “I just saw an error to start the game, then a homer, and a homer against Rushing. Other than that, he got better as he went. The changeup was good today. He attacked the strike zone. Never gave in. Poised after that first inning where things didn’t go his way – I thought it was an exceptional outing for him.”

Feltner himself credited the mental reset more than any mechanical adjustment. “Earlier in my career here, I would have pressed and tried to do something different,” he said. “But just knowing that stuff like that happens here, and just keeping the offense in it – I think that’s really important. That was my main goal after that.” He also credited Kyle Karros, whose diving stop down the third base line on a ball hit by Teoscar Hernandez in the sixth prevented what could have been a run-scoring extra-base hit. “I thought it was almost foul,” Feltner said. “The fact that he even got there is incredible. He’s got great range. I’ve been lucky to have two really good third basemen here with the Rockies.”

Johnston, for his part, had been tinkering. He came in early on Saturday morning and worked with hitting coach Brett Pill on a mechanical adjustment – getting into his back leg more, correcting a hip slide that had left him vulnerable to hard stuff inside. “It’s only weird if it doesn’t work,” Johnston said with a grin. It worked. He finished 3-for-4 with two doubles and two RBI, matching a career high in hits for the third time. “We love Troy’s energy,” Schaeffer said. “We love his at-bats. He’s not scared of anything.”

The sixth inning sequence that decided the game was a masterclass in passing the baton. Goodman led off with a double to center. Tovar followed with an infield hit. Johnston then lined a ball to center that cleared both runners – a clean, authoritative swing off Will Klein that put Colorado ahead for the first time all night.

The bullpen handled the rest. Bernardino stranded Freeman in the sixth and picked off Alex Call in the seventh to extinguish whatever hope remained. Hill navigated a bases-loaded situation in the eighth – Ohtani’s reaching on a catcher’s interference, Tucker singling, Hernandez drawing a walk – without allowing a run, generating a groundout from Muncy to end the inning. Vodnik worked a clean ninth, retiring the side after allowing two hits, to earn his third save. The Colorado bullpen has now posted a 0.68 ERA over the last five games – a number that would be remarkable in any context, let alone for a team that has been fighting to find its footing as of late.

It is worth noting what Johnston said after the game when asked about the one-run games that have gone against the Rockies and a few that have recently gone their way. “I think we’re getting timely hits,” he said. “And our pitching has been absolutely dominant. Just like any team that goes deep in the playoffs, they win those one-run games, they get the big hit. We’re starting to turn it around with the bats.” It’s a long season, and 8-13 is 8-13. But Saturday night at a sold-out Coors Field, with the defending champions on the other side and the crowd chanting in the ninth inning, felt like something this team will remember.