Kris Bryant finally homers but Rockies lose to Dodgers again

LOS ANGELES — Kris Bryant finally hit paydirt Tuesday night, but the Rockies bit the dust.

Again.

Bryant hit his first homer for his new team, leading off the sixth with a 392-foot solo shot to center off of reliever Phil Bickford, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

The Dodgers prevailed, 5-2, as starter German Marquez’s difficult season continued and the Rockies’ road offense went AWOL, again.

“It’s kind of good to get that one out of the way and now we can focus on getting back to just baseball,” said Bryant, who signed a seven-year, $182 million contract to join the Rockies, the largest free-agent contract in franchise history.

But because of a back injury, Bryant had played in just 23 games entering Tuesday’s game.

Bryant’s homer arrived in his 24th game and 90th at-bat in a Rockies uniform. It was his first dinger in 143 at-bats, the longest homer-less drought of his career. Bryant had not launched a regular-season home run since Sept. 15 of last season at San Francisco’s Oracle Park against the Padres. Bryant was traded from the Cubs to the Giants at the deadline last summer.

Bryant did hit a home run for the Giants against the Dodgers’ Walker Buehler in Game 1 of the National League division series.

“It was good for Kris, for sure, and obviously there are more coming, his track record tells us that,” manager Bud Black said. “But it’s probably a relief for Kris. All players want to get that first home run.”

Marquez gave up only six hits over six innings and struck out seven, but two Dodgers homers were included in the box score.

And Colorado’s offense continues to break down on the road. It went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and is now hitting .203 with RISP away from Coors Field. The Rockies struck out 12 times Tuesday night.

“The difference in tonight’s game came down to they out-hit us in certain situations and they out-pitched us,” Black said.

Los Angeles won for the sixth time in seven games and improved to 25-13 at Dodger Stadium, where the Dodgers have won eight of their last 11 games against Colorado. The Rockies are 9-27 at Dodger Stadium since 2018.

Marquez issued a leadoff walk to Will Smith in the second and Max Muncy made Marquez pay, hammering a two-run homer to right. Then Mookie Betts roped a one-out homer to left in the third.

Muncy’s leadoff double in the fourth, followed by Justin Turner’s run-scoring single to shallow right, stretched L.A’s lead to 4-1.

“(Marquez) had good stuff but made a couple of mistakes and they took advantage of it,” Black said. “Munch ambushed him twice and the hanging slider to Betts came back to haunt him.”

Marquez, an All-Star a year ago, fell to 4-7 and owns a 5.90 ERA.

“It was a good game for me and I feel like my delivery is back and everything is on time again,” Marquez said. “I made a couple of bad pitches and they hit them. That’s part of the game.”

Black could see that Bryant’s at-bats were improving since Bryant came off the injured list on June 27.

“You see bat speed, you see timing, and there is nothing really more elaborate to it than that,” Black said. “He’s just swinging the bat with more authority, and the bat speed is there.”

Bryant knew he was getting closer to finding regaining his power.

“I feel like my at-bats have been really good and I’ve been hitting the ball hard,” Bryant said. “Some were just too high and some were not high enough. I’ve been trying to find that consistent path that gets the ball into the air.”

Bryant, hitting .293, also ripped a single to left in the eighth inning but the Rockies never hinted at a late-game rally.