DENVER – What a difference three months can make on a baseball season.
When the Red Sox and Rockies squared off in Boston for a two-game set on May 14-15, Colorado was in the midst of clawing back from an awful start to the season.
Even after whiffing 17 times against Chris Sale in the opener, the boys in purple struck back to tie the game against the nearly unhittable lefty, improbably winning the game in the eleventh.
My, how that feels like a lifetime ago….
Before the game, Bud Black unveiled a lineup featuring Trevor Story leading off with Charlie Blackmon providing the protection, batting second. “You might see this for a while,” the skipper added of the new order.
Story did his job well, reaching bases safely three times with two singles and a walk. However, Blackmon hit into a double play in the first and Story was picked off in fifth with the bearded brut as the tying run at the plate. Ultimately, the duo didn’t factor into any of the four runs scored by the home squad.
On the hill, RHP Peter Lambert made his 15th start of the season; of current rotation members, the June-promoted rookie is second behind only Antonio Senzatela (19) this season.
The 22-year-old made it through one of the American League’s toughest lineup once before surrendering five runs in the next thirteen batters faced, including home runs to to J.D. Martinez and Xander Bogaerts, before being chased in the fifth.
Since those two promising starts against the Cubs to start his career, Lambert is now 0-5 with a 7.61 ERA over his last 13 outings.
Bogaerts added a second long ball in the seventh against Carlos Estévez, the 29-year-old’s seventh multi-homer game this season. The pair of blasts gave him 30 home runs and 100 runs batted in, making him the first Boston shortstop to achieve such milestones since Nomar Garciaparra in 1998.
Rafael Devers excelled at Coors Field, too, going 3-for-5 with a triple and mammoth 437 ft solo shot in the ninth off Wade Davis.
Offensively, Colorado mustered three runs off Red Sox starter LHP Eduardo Rodríguez to keep the score close through five frames. Enter MLB’s best bullpen since July 24th; before Sam Hilliard’s memorable homer Tuesday night, BoSox relievers hadn’t given up a dinger in 183 consecutive batters.
Their pen continued to have success after last night’s hiccup and though the Rockies were able to score one in the seventh off Marcus Walden thanks to a Nolan Arenado leadoff double, the comeback was nonexistent in the three-run loss, 7-4.
In the bottom half of the ninth inning, all three batters struck out, including Blackmon, who was rung up by home plate umpire Jerry Meals, ejected the right fielder from the game. Black came out in understandable frustration and was summarily tossed, the second occurrence for the manager this season.
Arenado knocked two hits and scored twice; Ian Desmond also scored twice, on a walk and a double; and an RBI was recorded by the quartet of Ryan McMahon, Yonathan Daza, Tony Wolters and Garrett Hampson, the latter on an exquisite bunt single that third baseman Devers tried to barehand, but failed.
