By DOUG PADILLA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Shohei Ohtani hit a tying home run in the ninth inning and Mook­ie Betts fol­lowed with a game-end­ing dri­ve as the Los Ange­les Dodgers ral­lied for a 6–5 vic­to­ry over the Col­orado Rock­ies on Sun­day to main­tain their three-game lead in the Nation­al League West.

Ohtani had four hits and added two stolen bases, giv­ing him 53 home runs and 55 steals on the season.

Lead­ing off the ninth after the Dodgers ral­lied to with­in a run, Ohtani lift­ed Seth Halvorsen’s fourth offer­ing, an 89-mph split-fin­ger pitch, over the wall in right-center. 

“To start that ninth inning with Shohei con­tin­u­ing to do what he does, he just doesn’t seem human right now,” Dodgers man­ag­er Dave Roberts said. “I real­ly haven’t seen a play­er as locked like Shohei is for as long as he’s been in quite some time.”

Betts hit a walk-off homer to left field on a 101-mph sinker from Halvors­en (2–1) for his 19th on the season.

“It was huge, espe­cial­ly 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.”

Halvors­en, a rook­ie mak­ing his 10th career appear­ance, had just earned his first career save Saturday.

“You nev­er want to expect the out­come of a pitch,” Havors­en said when asked about fac­ing Ohtani as the tying run in the ninth. “You want to focus on the process and focus on exe­cut­ing a pitch.”

Dodgers right-han­der Yoshi­nobu Yamamo­to, who is try­ing to solid­i­fy a spot in the Dodgers’ play­off rota­tion, gave up four runs on five hits over three innings with three walks.

Yamamo­to, in his third start back after a three-month stint on the injured list, is the like­ly No. 2 starter in the upcom­ing play­offs for Los Angeles.

Teoscar Hernán­dez and Kiké Hernán­dez also hit home runs for the Dodgers, while five Los Ange­les pitch­ers com­bined for a sea­son-high 17 strike­outs. Blake Treinen (7–3) struck out the side in the ninth inning.

The Dodgers can win their 11th divi­sion title in the last 12 sea­sons with two vic­to­ries over the Padres in the upcom­ing three-game series.

“It’ll be fun,” Betts said. “A lot of ener­gy. I’m sure a lot of emo­tions and what­not so it’ll be fun. These are the games we dream of playing.”

Rock­ies right-han­der Anto­nio Sen­za­tela gave up one run over five innings in his sec­ond start since return­ing from Tom­my John surgery. Bren­dan Rodgers and Nolan Jones each drove in two runs for the Rock­ies, who need three wins over their last six games to avoid a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive 100-loss season.

The Rock­ies loaded the bases four bat­ters into the game on sin­gles from Eze­quiel Tovar and Ryan McMa­hon, as well as a walk to Michael Toglia, before Rodgers deliv­ered a two-run sin­gle. Jones added an RBI ground out for the ear­ly 3–0 lead.

“It wasn’t pret­ty ear­ly, we had some oppor­tu­ni­ties … and we killed some ral­lies, but it was just great to see our guys still com­pete,” Roberts said.

The only run Los Ange­les scored off Sen­za­tela came on Teoscar Hernández’s 31st home run of the sea­son in the fourth inning.

Over the past week, Ohtani was 16 for 32 (.500) with six home runs, sev­en stolen bases, 17 RBIs, 11 runs scored and a 1.668 OPS.

“That’s why he got $700 mil­lion to car­ry us and we just have to sup­port him,” Betts said.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Dodgers: 3B Max Muncy was out of the start­ing line­up with sore­ness on his side after div­ing to make a play Saturday.

UP NEXT

Rock­ies: RHP Ryan Felt­ner (3–10, 4.73 ERA) is slat­ed to start against the Car­di­nals on Tues­day to open the final home­s­tand of the season.

Dodgers: RHP Lan­don Knack (3–4, 3.39 ERA) starts Tues­day in the final home series against the Padres.

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AP MLB: https://www.apnews.com/hub/MLB