LOS ANGELES — Any West Coast baseball fan scanning the summer schedule would not have isolated the three-game series starting Friday between the visiting Colorado Rockies and Los Angeles Dodgers as must-see MLB.
The Rockies had a new manager, Bud Black, who had washed out as the manager of the Padres, with two winning seasons in eight-plus seasons. They had a lot of hitters but their pitching was undistinguished, as usual, for a team that plays home games at high altitude.
Yet here they are, a few weeks away from the All-Star break, and they’re keeping pace with the Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks in a scorching three-way division race that seemingly will crown one division champ and send the two other teams to a wild-card playoff.