Dodgers commit four errors in 13-3 loss to Rockies

It’s an official spiral now, and not just because the losses are piling up, though they certainly are.

Now it’s the way the Dodgers are losing, which Friday night meant simply giving a game away.

The Dodgers committed four errors in suffering their fifth consecutive defeat, this one an unsightly 13-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies in Denver.

Until this skid, the Dodgers had not lost more than two consecutive games all season.

But they’re injury-riddled and playing youngsters and guys out of position, and coupled with an early-morning arrival to Denver, the Dodgers were a world away from sharp. They just seemed a world away.

They couldn’t even mount much of an offensive attack against Josh Outman, making his first start of the season after earning a 9.64 ERA as a reliever, and a series of four Colorado relievers.

Outman did not allow a run in his 3 1/3 innings, leaving the game up 2-0 after the Rockies scored two unearned runs without a hit in the second inning.

Don Mattingly oddly decided to start Ivan De Jesus at third and Jerry Hairston Jr. at second, a reverse of their more common positions, because of something about wanting to add stability to the middle of the infield.

But De Jesus threw a fairly routine grounder away for an error in the second, and after a walk, catcher Matt Treanor sailed a pick-off throw at third into left field, and both runners scored. The rhythm of the night had been set.

The Dodgers started left-hander Chris Capuano and his sterling 7-1 record and 2.14 ERA, but it mattered not. Capuano was hardly at his best, but of the seven runs he was charged with in his 5 1/3 innings, three were unearned.

The Rockies were up 4-1 in the sixth when they added four more to put it away, two coming off a Wilin Rosario two-run homer. That would be one of 15 Colorado hits, and three home runs.

By the time Chris Nelson and Michael Cuddyer hit consecutive solo homers off Josh Lindblom in the eighth, it was overkill.

It was the first time the Dodgers committed four errors in a single game in almost four years.

The Dodgers still own the best record in baseball (32-20), but it’s beginning to feel particularly precarious.

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