The Rock­ies had not won a road series at the Dodgers in more than two years before Sun­day night when Col­orado final­ly woke up from its Los Ange­les nightmare.

Matt Kemp, against his long­time for­mer team, blast­ed an eighth-inning home run that scored Kevin Pil­lar and the Rock­ies escaped LA with a dra­mat­ic, 7–6, vic­to­ry. It marks the first time the Dodgers have lost a series this season.

It wasn’t easy. There were four lead changes and two ties. Col­orado pitch­ers com­bined to allow four home runs. But the Rock­ies, sim­i­lar­ly to Sat­ur­day night at Dodger Sta­di­um, show­cased impres­sive resilience to get back to .500 on the year (20–20) with 20 games left in this short­ened season.

Char­lie Black­mon and Trevor Sto­ry were com­bined hit­less (0‑for‑8), but eight of the Rock­ies’ 12 hits came from the bot­tom of the order. Rock­ies’ reliev­er Yen­cy Almonte (3–0) earned the pitch­ing victory.

The Rock­ies were forced to climb out from an ear­ly deficit.

Start­ing pitch­er Ryan Castellani’s sev­enth pitch of the night result­ed in a deep shot to cen­ter cour­tesy of Dodgers short­stop Corey Sea­ger for a 1–0 lead. Col­orado was quick to respond, though, when Josh Fuentes extend­ed his hit­ting streak to eight games with a two-run blast (scor­ing Matt Kemp) to go up 2–1. The pen­du­lum swung back to the Dodgers in the sec­ond inning when Castel­lani allowed his sec­ond solo home run of the night (Will Smith).

The 2–2 stale­mate con­tin­ued into the fourth inning as Col­orado flashed impres­sive field­ing with a pair of turned dou­ble plays. And, the Rock­ies re-took the lead in the fifth when lead­off hit­ter Raimel Tapia’s sin­gle scored Gar­rett Hamp­son, who stole sec­ond after a well-exe­cut­ed bunt. Nolan Are­na­do made it a two-run advan­tage, 4–2, when his sin­gle scored Tapia.

Colorado’s lead fad­ed quickly.

Sea­ger kept his bat blaz­ing with a homer to cen­ter, scor­ing Enrique Her­nan­dez, to tie the game at 4–4. It marked the end of Castellani’s out­ing after 4–1/3 innings pitched (six hits, four earned runs, one strikeout).

Dodgers reliev­er Jake McGee, released by the Rock­ies in July, made his first appear­ance Sun­day against his old club with two outs in the sixth inning. Gar­rett Hamp­son, with Kevin Pil­lar at sec­ond, ham­mered a stand-up triple to put the Rock­ies up 5–4.

The Rock­ies advan­tage, once again, proved fleeting.

Col­orado turned to pitch­er Car­los Estevez in relief, his 19th game appear­ance this sea­son, and the 27-year-old right-han­der gave up the Rock­ies’ fourth home run of the night — a two-run blast from Chris Tay­lor that scored AJ Pol­lock in the sixth — to put LA back up 6–5.

Kemp’s home run gave Col­orado the last lead it need­ed. Clos­er Daniel Bard put two run­ners on with two outs in the ninth, but forced Sea­ger to ground­out to end the game. Before Sun­day, the Rock­ies’ last series vic­to­ry in LA took place on June 29-July 1.

Col­orado opens a three-game series at the Padres on Monday.