Arenado leads Rockies rally to take series opener from Nats

The Colorado Rockies had been riding a wave of incredible starting pitching that at times was able to pick up a poorly performing offense but on Monday night’s series opener against the Washington Nationals, the offense picked up the pitching behind a brilliant performance from Nolan Arenado for a 7-5 win.

They have now won seven of their last eight baseball games.

Tyler Anderson returned from the Injured List but picked up his struggles right where he left them, only managing to last three innings and leaving the Rockies with a big question mark in their rotation.

Anderson’s rough outing began right away with a leadoff single surrendered to Adam Eaton. After a lineout, Anderson walked Juan Soto, a double steal, and a hard single back up the middle to Howie Kendrick to gives the Nats an early 2-0 lead.

The Rockies came right back though, tying the game in the bottom of the first thanks to a single from David Dahl, an RBI double for Nolan Arenado, and a two-out liner up the middle for Ryan McMahon.

Anderson settled in for the second and third but his old demons showed up in the fourth. A single for Ryan Zimmerman led to a 12-pitch walk to Yan Gomes. The Rockies’ lefty then fell behind Brian Dozier 2-0 before grooving a cutter right down the middle of the strike zone. Dozier obliterated the pitch for a no-doubt three-run homer to left, giving Washington a 5-2 advantage.

Colorado once again stormed back in the fifth. Arenado started things with a double to deep center field. He scored on a Trevor Story single to left, part of extending his hit streak to 11 games. The Rockies put Story in motion which kept him out of the double play on a McMahon grounder. That paid off huge when Mark Reynolds launched one way over the center field wall for his third home run of the season, and the 297th of his career.

Chad Bettis replaced Anderson and pitched three perfect innings without recording a strikeout. He gave way to Seunghwan Oh who preserved the 5-5 tie with a clean seventh inning.

Arenado led off the bottom of the frame and smashed his third extra-base hit of the game, a home run on a flyball into the left-field bleachers that gave the Rockies a 6-5 lead.

Scott Oberg came on in the eighth and struck out the first man he faced before allowing a single to Soto, breaking a streak of 13 straight batters sat down by Rockies’ pitching. He erased him quickly, though, on a 6-4-3 double play to preserve the one-run lead.

The Rockies got an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth on a pinch-hit solo home run from Raimel Tapie who hit an absolute screamer that cleared the high wall in right field to make it 7-5.

That meant it was Wade Davis time in the ninth. He never seems to make it easy, giving up a leadoff double to Zimmerman and issuing a one-out walk to put the tying run on base. But he got some help from his defense on fantastic plays from Story and Arenado both of which featured phenomenal stretches at first base from Reynolds and the latter of which went down as a game-ending double play.

Stats

Nolan Arenado: 3-for-4, 3 R, 2 RBI

Mark Reynolds: 1-for-2, 1 R, 2 RBI, 2 BB

Tyler Anderson: 3 IP, 4 H, 5 ER, 3 BB, 4 K

Chad Bettis: 3 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

Seunghwan Oh: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

Scott Oberg: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

Wade Davis: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 0 K (S: 2)