Eli Whitney | April 21, 2026

The series split was fair. Monday’s game was not. The Los Angeles Dodgers pounded the Colorado Rockies 12-3 in the series finale at Coors Field, handing Jose Quintana his second loss of the season and reminding everyone in attendance of just how much firepower the defending  champions carry from top to bottom. Colorado falls to 9-14.

​Quintana never found his footing. The veteran left-hander allowed six runs – a career high against Los Angeles – and eight hits across five innings, with the damage coming in waves. Max Muncy and Miguel Rojas hit back-to-back solo home runs in the second to put the Dodgers up 2-1. An error from Kyle Karros in the third opened the door for two more unearned runs. Then a Quintana balk in the fourth handed Los Angeles another. By the time Quintana departed after five innings, the Rockies trailed 5-1 and were chasing a game that was already beyond reach. “He battled,” Schaeffer said afterward. “Got hurt when he got behind in counts. I don’t think it was the cleanest game behind him – we didn’t play great defense tonight, uncharacteristically. Just one to forget.” Quintana himself acknowledged the frustration while finding some positivity in his execution. “All my stuff was better today,” he said. “I feel like if I throw that way and minimize runs, I have a chance to give us a chance to win.”

​Tanner Gordon relived in the sixth and was hit hard, allowing six runs – including two Dalton Rushing home runs in the eighth and ninth – as the Dodgers turned what had been a manageable deficit into a rout. Rushing now has seven home runs in his first eight games of the season, the first player in Dodgers history to accomplish that feat and just the third player since 1900 to do so, joining Trevor Story in 2016 and Mike Schmidt in 1976. Muncy finished 4-for-4 with two home runs, four runs scored, and a walk – his fifth multi-home run game at Coors Field – and batted .588 across the four-game series. On a day when Colorado’s pitching had no answers, the Dodgers’ lineup asked every question.

​The Rockies’ only sustained offensive contribution came from Jordan Beck, who led off the game with a double and finished 3-for-4 with an RBI – his first three-hit game of the season. Beck has been in and out of the lineup as the team navigates its roster construction against right-handed pitching, and Schaeffer acknowledged the challenge his situation presents. “It’s really hard to get going when you’re not playing a whole lot,” the manager said. “Just getting more comfortable in that role until things turn – that’s the biggest challenge.” TJ Rumfield added a solo home run in the eighth, his third of the season, after entering the game as a pinch hitter for Tyler Freeman, who left in the first inning with dizziness.  

​Justin Wrobleski was a problem the Rockies couldn’t solve. The left-hander went seven innings, allowing eight hits but just one earned run while walking nobody and striking out three – becoming the first Dodgers starter to post back-to-back starts of at least seven innings with one or fewer runs and no walks since Max Scherzer in 2021. “He was just attacking the strike zone,” Schaeffer said. He was quick to note that the underlying approach wasn’t absent – by his count, the Rockies made hard contact on 15 different occasions. “I thought we pushed our offensive approach forward again tonight,” he said. “We just didn’t get the results for it.”

​Shohei Ohtani extended his on-base streak to 52 consecutive games – moving into sole possession of third place in Dodgers franchise history and one game shy of tying Shawn Green’s 53-game streak from 2000. He was intentionally walked in the sixth inning for the fifth time this season. Miguel Rojas recorded the 1,000th hit of his career with a single in the fourth inning.

​The four-game series ends with a split at two games apiece, with the Rockies winning their first back-to-back games against the Dodgers in a single season since October 2022. That is worth holding onto. Monday, however, was a reminder that the gap between these two teams remains significant – and that one of the days when Coors Field turns against you and the opposing lineup is this deep, there is very little a pitching staff can do to keep pace. The Rockies welcome San Diego to town next. They will need a reset, and they will need it quickly.