Dodgers walk off Rockies on back-to-back homers from Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts

LOS ANGELES – This Sho goes on … and on.

On the verge of losing a series to the last-place Colorado Rockies and bringing the second-place San Diego Padres to town just two games back, the Dodgers’ leading men stepped up. Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts hit back-to-back home runs in the ninth inning Sunday afternoon, pulling the Dodgers all the way back from a four-run deficit to beat the Colorado Rockies 6-5.

“It was huge – specially when you’re looking at the scoreboard and you see San Diego won,” Betts said. “I didn’t mean to look at it, but they won and we needed to win a game there. Shohei starts it off with a homer there to give us some energy and fortunately I was able to put a good swing on it.

“It’s really hard (not to look at the scoreboard), man. It’s really hard because you have to take care of the task at hand, but sometimes you have a wandering eye and check to see what’s going on. It’s really hard and you try to take care of what you can control and that’s playing right now.”

The Padres have forced the Dodgers to pay attention by winning eight of their past nine games while the Dodgers have gone 7-6 over their past 13 games, slowing the countdown on their magic number to clinch the division. It will be four when they take the field against the Padres on Tuesday.

“It’s enormous. It really is,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the difference going into the series against the Padres with positive momentum. “To go into a series, those guys playing great, winning three, coming up here, they’ve had their way with us up to this point – to lose a series, it would have been tough. Just mentally feeling a little bit like you’re on your heels. But after this series win, I feel like we can still continue to be aggressive and go out there and try to win a series.”

Ohtani’s home run was his fourth hit of the game to go with two stolen bases. He now leads the National League with 53 home runs – five in his past four games – and has 55 stolen bases.

While the lineup around him has gone cold recently, Ohtani has turned into a one-man Sho. Over his past eight games, he is 18 for 36 with four doubles, six home runs, 19 RBIs, 12 runs scored, seven stolen bases including at least one in each of the past five games – with a three-hit game, a four-hit game and a six-hit game.

“He just doesn’t seem human right now,” Roberts said.

“He’s on a mission. You see it. He’s just continuing to fight, continuing to stay hungry. He wants to win. You can see it. He comes in every day prepared. The jumps that he’s getting to steal bases, to get hits – I think he wants to hit .300 (for the season). You saw his first couple at-bats where he’s taking hits the other way. So to be able to hit .300, hit 50-something homers with 120-something ribbies and steal a bunch of bases – I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with him but it’s hard to imagine him being this focused ever before for this stretch of time.”

That he is carrying the Dodgers on his broad shoulders is “pretty obvious,” Betts said.

“But I don’t think it’s just been recent. I think it’s been the whole time,” Betts said. “That’s why he got $700 million – to carry us and we just have to support him.”

Down 5-1 in the seventh inning, the Dodgers had done nothing against the Rockies starter, Antonio Senzatela, or reliever Jeff Criswell. But Kiké Hernandez hit a two-run home run off Jaden Hill and an RBI single by Freddie Freeman – set up by Ohtani’s second stolen base of the game – made it a one-run game.

Two innings later, Ohtani led off the bottom of the ninth with his home run, turning to the home dugout and pointing at his teammates as he jogged up the first-base line.

Three pitches later, Betts turned on a 101-mph fastball from right-hander Seth Halvorsen and drove it into the left-field pavilion to win the game. The emotion spilled out of Betts as the Dodgers spilled out of the dugout to meet him at home plate.

“It just shows the magnitude of this game. It does,” Roberts said of the emotions shown by Ohtani and Betts. “You need your stars to play like stars and for those guys to come through today – it’s not easy, the responsibility that those guys have. But the emotion was real and it was good to see.”

The feel-good finish covered for Yoshinobu Yamamoto whose progress in his return from a rotator cuff injury stalled Sunday.

Charlie Blackmon flew out deep to right field to start the game. The next five batters reached base against Yamamoto – three singles and two walks – leading to three runs. He walked another batter in the second inning then gave up another run in the third on a double and a single.

“First of all, I was not able to control my pitches and that led to me missing location and I ended up falling behind in counts,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter.

“Today and also the last  one were not really good. My stuff wasn’t there so I’m going to get myself ready for the next one and I’ll do my best.”

“Yoshinobu wasn’t sharp today. Didn’t give us much as far as length,” Roberts said.

“I think for Yoshinobu he’s just got to go out there and execute pitches. But again, I still think the pitch count total is fine. I do believe we’ve got to get him to the fifth, sixth inning and I’m hopeful we can do that.”