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The Dodgers’ Mookie Betts, right, is greeted by teammates Shohei Ohtani (17), Ben Rortvedt (47) and Andy Pages (44) after they all scored on his grand slam during the eighth inning of a game against the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025, at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — That was suitably dismissive.

After a week of playing down to – and then slightly lower than – their last-place opponents, the Dodgers completed a three-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies with a 9-0 victory on Wednesday night.

The Dodgers outscored the Rockies 19-3 in the three-game series. Their starting pitchers (Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Blake Snell) took the lead, combining to allow just two runs on five hits and five walks while striking out 31 in 20 innings.

Adding Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s near no-hitter on Saturday and Clayton Kershaw on Sunday in Baltimore, Dodgers starting pitchers have struck out 49 while holding batters to a .091 average. According to OptaStats, that is the first time in the modern era (since 1920) that a team’s starters have had 45 or more strikeouts while holding the opponents to a sub-.100 average over any five-game span.

“This week’s been fun. I was definitely thinking about it,” Snell said after his six scoreless innings. “Like, ‘Damn, we got guys throwing no-nos.’ But it’s fun. Internal competition. You’re excited for everyone and their success, and you want to add to it. I was happy I could do that. And just really happy with the team. That was a big home series sweep, to get us going. Now we’re gonna go play San Fran.

“Get us moving in the right direction. That was big. All of us have been looking forward to getting it going, and this was a really good step.”

If the dominant starting pitching wasn’t enough to turn your frown upside down, Mookie Betts continued his resurgence with a four-hit, five-RBI night that included an RBI double and a grand slam.

The four-game winning streak comes on the heels of a five-game losing streak, all to last-place teams (the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Rockies), and allowed the Dodgers (82-64) to rebuild a three-game lead in the National League West with 16 games left in the regular season. They remain four games behind the Philadelphia Phillies (86-60) for the No. 2 seed in the NL – and the first-round bye that comes with it.

The Dodgers’ magic number to clinch their 12th division title in the past 13 seasons is 14. They also hold the tiebreaker over the second-place San Diego Padres (79-67).

“Definitely now that we’re getting all of our players back, we feel like a team again,” outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “Hopefully it stays that way and we keep doing what we’re doing.”

The lone cloud in Wednesday’s sunny skies came just before game time when All-Star catcher Will Smith was scratched from the starting lineup with renewed discomfort in his right hand.

Smith suffered a bone bruise there last Wednesday, missed five games and returned to the lineup on Tuesday night. But his hand began swelling up after his pre-game work Wednesday and he was scratched from the lineup. Ben Rortvedt stepped in with 15 minutes notice and didn’t even catch Snell’s warmup in the bullpen.

“Obviously we’re off tomorrow. We’ll manage it tomorrow with the treatment and then on Friday we’ll make a decision on whether he plays,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Smith. “Not overly concerned but we’ve got to get that swelling under wraps.

“We thought that he was going to be able to play tonight. But with the setback a little bit, we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I’m not sure. I don’t want to say he’s not going to play Friday, but we’ve got to be pretty confident he can catch two out of three if he’s going to play on Friday.”

Roberts said it’s possible Smith could go for an MRI on the off day on Thursday. He has already had X-rays and a CT scan, which showed no fracture.

Whatever drama Wednesday’s game might have held was mostly drained away by the end of the second inning.

Rockies third baseman Kyle Karros whiffed on a ground ball from Tommy Edman to start the inning. Miguel Rojas followed with a single and Andy Pages with a double to drive in Edman. Kiké Hernandez collected the second RBI of the inning with a sacrifice fly.

After a ground out, Shohei Ohtani punched an RBI single through the right side and Betts hit a laser off the left field wall for an RBI double to complete the four-run burst.

“We’re having good team at-bats up and down the lineup,” Betts said. “For a little while we were having just some bad at-bats, which caused some short innings. But now we’re at least having good at-bats, getting a walk, extending innings, finding ways to manufacture runs. We’re doing pretty well as an offense right now.”

The Rockies never put up a fight against Snell. They did manage to get a hit in the third inning this time after being held hitless into the ninth inning on Monday and the sixth inning on Tuesday.

Snell struck out a season-high 11 in his six innings and had 22 swings-and-misses in all (nine on his changeup, seven on his fastball and six on his curveball). Snell allowed four baserunners – singles in the third and sixth innings, walks in the first and fourth. Only one of the baserunners reached second.

“He’s a confident man up there. Knows what he wants to do,” said Rortvedt, who found out he was starting when he woke up from a pre-game nap. “(Snell) has faith in all his pitches. He’s got four good ones. So it’s a tough day at the plate if he’s honing in.”

Michael Kopech tried to inject some mystery into the occasion in the seventh inning, searching for the strike zone with all the accuracy of a blindfolded participant in ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey.’ Kopech got Ezequiel Tovar to ground out then walked three consecutive batters to load the bases.

Alex Vesia came in and defused the situation, striking out Mickey Moniak and Tyler Freeman. Vesia has struck out four of the five batters he has faced since being activated from the injured list earlier this week.

The Dodgers broke the game open in the eighth when Teoscar Hernandez followed Betts’ grand slam with his third home run in the past two games.

“There’s no real way to know. I just know that the vibe and the feel of it, as far as the camaraderie, the energy should I say – it’s definitely one that’s been more positive as of late,” Betts said when asked if the team had turned things around. “We just got to keep that positive energy around us.

“Just go to San Fran, and we got a game – I don’t even know what day today is. Whenever we get there, we’ve got a game, and we just have to play one game at a time. Can’t look further than where we are right now.”


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