DENVER – It was a back and forth affair at Coors Field on a second consecutive perfect evening. 24 hours after blowing a 9-1 lead only to win on a dramatic walk-off from rookie Raimel Tapia, the Colorado Rockies found themselves down early this time and needed a comeback of their own. And comeback they did.
Joe Panik started things by ambushing a fastball for a solo home run to right in the first.
The Rockies caught a tough break in the bottom of the first when, after a DJ LeMahieu single — making him five-for-his-last-six, Nolan Arenado hit his fourth double in five at-bats, but it hopped over the wall preventing LeMahieu from scoring. Carlos Gonzalez lined out softly to short and Ian Desmond struck out to strand them both.
Denard Span put the Giants on top 2-0 with a solo home run of his own in the third and surprisingly two-run home run.
Colorado got one back on a pair of doubles from the incredibly hot top of the lineup, Blackmon and LeMahieu, to make it 2-1.
But San Francisco pulled further away in an unlikely fashion; with a two-run home run from pitcher Jeff Samardzija. Senzatela’s fastball was clearly being hunted, and he is going to need to make adjustments to throw hitters off of it, but he continues to show a mental resiliency that will keep earning him starts.
The offense immediately took him off the hook with a huge bottom of the fifth.
Tony Wolters got it all started with a bloop single and came around on a Blackmon RBI triple, his MLB-leading 10th of the season. LeMahieu followed with an RBI single up the middle to make it 4-3. Then Arenado singled to right (the Top 3 in the lineup are on fire) CarGo popped out leaving Desmond with a two on, two-out situation. Desmond, who has been hitting the ball much harder over the last month, came through with his biggest hit as a Rockie, smashing a three-run shot over the right field fence to give Colorado a 6-4 lead.
Desmond is 14-for-his-last-39 with two home runs, two doubles, and 10 RBI. He is 8-for-15 with two outs and runners in scoring position this season.
That RBI single was LeMahieu’s seventh his in his last eight at-bats. He later drew a walk and threw out another base hit in the eighth, giving him consecutive four-hit games. He is the first Rockie to do that since Gonzalez in 2010. The season batting average for LeMahaieu is up to .299. He is 8-for-his-last-9 at the plate.
But the Giants came back to make it a one-run game immediately. Panik continued to haunt the Rockies with a = double and came in on a Hunter Pence groundout. Senzatela managed to strike out Brandon Crawford to end his night and preserve the one-run lead.
His final line: 6 IP, 6 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 6 K. He threw 50 of his 85 pitches for strikes. The low total suggests the Rockies are looking to keep his workload down now. The home runs were clearly what hurt him in this one, but he just keeps grinding along. With the win, he moves into a tie with Clayton Kershaw for the most wins in the National League with nine.
The Rockies got an insurance run on a Trevor Story pinch-hit home run, the first of that kind in his career, to put the Rockies up 7-5. It was a blast at 431 feet over the center field fence.
Adam Ottavino came on in the seventh and struck out a pair around inducing an infield pop up, the first clean inning for the Rockies bullpen in a couple of games.
Colorado plated three more in the bottom of the seventh in an odd fashion. LeMahieu drew a walk on a questionable call that Giants manager Bruce Bochy questioned and was ejected for. He moved to third on a bloop single from Cargo and scored on a sac fly from Desmond. Gonzalez came all the way in to score when Pence mishandled a line drive single from Tapia who strolled intro third on the error. Tapia came in on a double from Alexi Amarista to make it 10-5, Colorado.
But the game was not yet secure.
Chris Rusin struggled, really for the first time all season, giving up a triple to Span and a double to Panik. Pence came through with a two-out single to make it 10-7. Rusin stayed focused and finished off the inning with a Crawford pop up to hand the ball to Greg Holland one night after blowing his first save of 2017.
Holland gave up a one-out triple to Gorkys Hernandez, who got the sac fly that cost Holland his first save a night ago, and then a single to Austin Slater who also was a thorn in his side, to make it 10-8. Superstar Buster Posey was called on to pinch-hit as the tying run and drew the walk, bringing the go-ahead run to the plate in the streaking Denard Span. After a getting behind 2-1, Holland came back to strike Span out and the crowd rose to their feet as Joe Panik, working on a three-hit night, strode to the plate.
The Rockies closer displayed the cool confidence he is known for, getting Panik to ground out to second recording his 24th save of the season … in 25 attempts.
Colorado is now 44-26 and retain the best record in the National League.
