Brewers slide past Rockies with late rally against Greg Holland

The Colorado Rockies rallied to tie the game late but succumb to an even later rally from the Milwaukee Brewers to drop the second game of the series 6-3.

Greg Holland came on in a tie game in the top of the ninth and struck out the first batter he faced with relative ease and got ahead of Keon Broxton 0-2 but a fastball got away from him, running inside to plunk Broxton who moved to second on a groundout to third. Working into a 3-2 count against pinch-hitter Jesus Aguilar, Holland served up a mistake curveball and paid for his as the power righty smashed his 12th homer of the season over the center-field fence to put the Brewers up 5-3. It didn’t even end there as the Rockies closer issued a walk to Eric Thames who stole second and gave up an RBI single to Neil Walker to make is 6-3, Brewers. For the first time all season, Holland was removed from a game by manager Bud Black and replaced by the returning Scott Oberg.

It was not a blown save but Holland was saddled with his fourth loss of the season. And once again, he was one strike away from escaping the inning unscathed.

Chad Bettis had a good, borderline great, night, giving up runs in just one inning and getting through seven frames on 92 pitches at Coors Field. He looked every bit the version of himself from a year ago that could be penciled in for a quality start nearly every time out. He surrendered eight hits and one walk, striking out six over those innings.

The Rockies tied it up in the bottom of the seventh. Trevor Story started the rally by pulling a double down the left field line. After Pat Valaika struck out in his pinch-hit attempt, Charlie Blackmon slapped a single through the left side of the infield to score Story. Then Blackmon stole second, his 12th swiped bag of the year, and scored the tying run on a line drive single to left from DJ LeMahieu. LeMahieu moved to third on a single from Nolan Arenado that might have been an RBI double had the outfielders not been playing nearly at the walls. Gerardo Parra struck out and Mark Reynolds gave the fans a jolt of excitement with a deep drive to left, but it fell just short

Colorado got on the board in the fourth. Parra and Reynolds hit back-to-back singles and it looked for a moment like Carlos Gonzalez had tied the game with a drive to deep right, but the ball died at the warning track. Jonathan Lucroy delivered the much-needed one-out single to make it a 3-1 game but Story and Bettis struck out to strand two runners on base for the second inning in a row.

Bettis was tagged for three runs in the third inning. Exhibiting an issue that has plagued the Rockies all season, troubles began when Bettis allowed a hit to his counterpart, Brandon Woodruff, who lined a single just over the infield. It was the first hit of Woodruff’s career.

Eric Thames then hammered a triple into the gap in right center field to score the first run of the game and set himself up in perfect position to score the second. He did just that on a sac fly from Ryan Braun, the throw in from Blackmon coming in way off line. The Brewers brewed a third run on a towering Travis Shaw home run.

The first frame featured some fancy fielding from the formidable defensive wizards Story and Lucroy. With runners at first and third and one out, the catcher recognized that the Brewers were going all-in with some aggressive baserunning and fired the ball to short after a strikeout, fully expecting to get the ball back. Story executed a perfect throw and gunned yet another runner out at the plate completing the rare 2-6-2, strike ’em out, throw ’em out double play.

Colorado fell to 68-55 but with Arizona taking a loss still maintain a one-game lead on the top spot in the National League Wild Card.