It is completely understood and accepted that every baseball player needs an occasional day off, or “blow,” as those around the game call it. The problem is, when that blow involves the best player on the team and perhaps the best player in the game today not named Mike Trout, that blow can be a blow to the team in a more traditional meaning of the word – a devastating punch.

On Sunday afternoon, Dodgers outfielder and future Hall of Famer Mookie Betts and super-utility player Chris Taylor were given a blow – in the same game; the result of which was a blow to the team in the form of a loss which, quite frankly, never should have happened.

Now obviously, ‘You can’t win ’em all.’ Even the ’27 Yankees, led by Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and the team recognized as the greatest team in the 151-year history of Major League Baseball, lost 44 of their (then) 154 regular-season games for a remarkable .714 winning percentage.

Well, guess what? Heading into Sunday’s four-game series finale against the NL West fourth-place Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, the NL West first-place Los Angeles Dodgers, who had won the first three in (wait for it…) blowouts, had a .717 winning percentage.

Had.

It is now .704 after losing by a score of 6-3 in a game that they should have won and quite possibly would have won if their best player (Betts) and their current hottest player (Taylor) had been in the lineup instead of given a blow.

I know – woulda, coulda, shoulda, right?

Can’t really argue that. But what you can argue is that 26-year-old Dodgers right-hander Tony Gonsolin pitched the game of his brief two-year / 18-game (12 starts) career on Sunday, allowing only two runs on three hits, with one walk and a career-high 10 strikeouts over his game-winning-worthy five innings of work. So good was Gonsolin that he struck out the first seven Rockies batters he faced … SEVEN.

We all know that ‘Any team can beat any other team on any given day.’ But when you give your best hitters a day off on the same day (with a scheduled off-day the next day), the deck is seriously stacked against you. In fact, the Dodgers could only muster seven hits, with only two extra-base hits (doubles by Cody Bellinger and Zach McKinstry), while amassing a combined five strikeouts and leaving nine runners on base, three of which were left in scoring position.

This most certainly isn’t meant to discredit or take anything away from the Rockies pitching staff, especially Rockies right-handed starter Antonio Senzatela, who allowed only one run on three hits, while walking two and striking out three of the 23 Dodgers batters he faced in his 6.1 innings pitched. The problem is, Betts (.303, with an MLB-best 16 home runs and a team-best 39 RBI) and Taylor (.283, with seven home runs and a team third-best 30 RBI) were not among those 23 batters.

As he often does and as every good manager should do, Dave Roberts emphasized the silver lining of an otherwise dark cloud.

“To come into Denver where you never know what’s going to happen here, to take three of four from these guys was really good,” Roberts said during his postgame Zoom media scrum. “I think the pitching, the defense, the offense – quality at-bats – all that stuff good. So, to look back and say that we took that five of seven, really good.”

Roberts also gave props to Gonsolin on his career-best outing.

“I thought Tony threw the heck out of the baseball; first time on regular rest,” Roberts said. “I thought he gave us what he needed, we had leverage behind him.

“I think T has shown us resilience as fas as in tough spots, no moment gets too big,” added the Dodgers skipper. “He really does a good job getting ahead throwing strike-one, and he’s shown in these last couple of outings the ability to punch guys out when he has them down. So, a lot of good stuff in his last couple turns.”

The good news is that with their blow on Sunday, and with Monday being a scheduled day off, and with only six games remaining in the COVID-19-shortened 60-game 2020 regular season, Betts and Taylor are good to go for the duration … so there’s that.

Play Ball!

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