Colorado Is Rocked Early by Dodgers

Those are palm trees, not snow-capped mountains beyond the outfield walls. And the air is thick with the heat of summer, not thin with altitude.

Yet, the way the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies started Monday night’s game, it certainly seemed as if they were in Denver’s homer-friendly Coors Field rather than pitcher-friendly Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers scored five first-inning runs, thanks largely to back-to-back home runs by Eric Karros and Raul Mondesi. The Rockies responded with three runs second.

And that was that. Dodgers 5, Rockies 3.

Dodger right-hander Hideo Nomo regained control of the game and got ninth-inning relief from Darren Hall in the victory before 31,076.

Both performances were crucial for the Dodgers, whose pitching depth is suddenly being tested. They hope Nomo (7-6) can assume the role of Ramon Martinez, the Dodgers’ ace who was placed on the disabled list Monday because of a small tear in the rotator cuff of his throwing shoulder.

Hall, filling in for closer Todd Worrell, who was home with flu, found himself hanging on to a suddenly precarious lead after he surrendered hits to Kirt Manwaring and Neifi Perez with one out in the ninth inning.

Hall entered the game with a 2.10 earned-run average, but no saves since May of 1995.

He has one now after retiring the last two batters to enable the Dodgers to get back to .500 at 37-37 and move to within 1 1/2 games of the second-place Rockies in the NL West.

Colorado pinch-hitter John Vander Wal hit back to Hall, who flipped the ball to catcher Mike Piazza. Piazza got Manwaring in a rundown and chased the Rockie catcher all the way back to within a step of the third base before applying the tag. Eric Young then grounded to shortstop Greg Gagne, who flipped to Wilton Guerrero at second base for the game-ending fielder’s choice.

The Dodgers’ first-inning offensive surge began with leadoff man Brett Butler’s single, followed by the crucial swing of the night, as it turned out. It was a grounder by Todd Zeile that never left the infield.

First baseman Andres Galarraga dropped it for an error to put two runners aboard.

The first of those, Butler, scored on a sacrifice fly to right by Piazza. Zeile trotted home after Karros smacked his 15th home run over the wall in left field.

It was Karros’ sixth home run in his last 12 games. The two runs batted in give him 471 in his seven-year career, moving Karros past Wes Parker into ninth place on the Dodgers’ all-time list.

On the next pitch, Mondesi hit his 15th homer.

Vinny Castilla’s 19th home run accounted for two of the Rockies’ runs. The other came across on a groundout by Perez, which scored Manwaring, who had tripled.

It’s been a good week for the Dodgers. Starting with last Tuesday’s victory over the Angels, they have won five of seven games, outscoring the opposition, 42-27.

“That’s when we seemed to turn the corner,” said Butler of the dramatic win over the Angels. “That gave us some enthusiasm, some drive.”

But Karros believes that, ultimately, the loss of Martinez will have to be made up by two other Dodger starters.

“[Ismael] Valdes and [Pedro] Astacio have to pick up the slack,” Karros said. “Those are the guys who have to step up. That’s just it.

“We’re still a .500 ballclub. One, two or three [players] aren’t going to carry the club. It’s not going to happen. We’d like for it to happen, but it just won’t.”

Maybe not over the long haul. But Monday night, all it took was two guys, with one swing each, to put the Rockies away.