BSN Exclusive: Rockies showcasing a new hero and sidekick every day

If you haven’t been paying close enough attention to the Colorado Rockies, you’ve missed a lot of great baseball.

For any hysteria about this year’s team failing to be as good as last year, consider this: Colorado’s record was also 30-27 on June 1, 2018.

After starting the year 3-12, the Rockies are 27-15 since April 14, good for the second best record in the National League during that span. During the 8-1 homestand, the Rockies have pulled themselves out of that early season hole and are now above the .500 mark by three games.

The best part about this run of wins for them; every game has been rife with key contributions from a different player, many of which came late or in the final at bat. Though the first game was supported heavily by Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story, the recipe of relying on these two sluggers has changed.

To let Tony Wolters describe it, the winning atmosphere has trickled down to every last member of the roster. “You always hear, ‘hitting is contagious.’ Pitching is contagious. Everything is contagious when you’re doing well,” he says.

And as with many heroes, there was always a sidekick who accompanied each game’s most valuable player and, yes, even those contributors were sometimes the least conspicuous player in the dugout.

May 24th: 8-6 walk-off over Baltimore

Hero: Trevor Story

Sidekick: Nolan Arenado

Batting back from a 5-1 deficit, the Rockies eventually tied the game at 7-7 in the seventh courtesy of back-to-back home runs by Story and Arenado. Not to be outdone, Story would add to his second home run of the game – and 101st of his career – courtesy of a two-run, walk-off blast.

May 26th: 8-7 walk-off over Baltimore

Hero: Tony Wolters

Sidekick: German Márquez & Jeff Hoffman

Though Márquez would just miss earning a quality start with a slightly shaky seventh inning, it was his exploits at the plate that brought the crowd to their collective feet with his bases loaded triple. Trailing 7-6 in the ninth and forced to use starting pitcher Hoffman as a pinch runner, Wolters lofted a fly ball deep enough to score Hoffman for the second walk-off of the Orioles’ series.

May 27th: 4-3 walk-off over Arizona

Hero: Raimel Tapia

Sidekick: Ian Desmond

Jon Gray would battle Zack Greinke into the sixth inning, but the score remained 3-3 until extras. Desmond came off the bench in the ninth and remained in the game to spell the young center fielder, Yonathan Daza. In the eleventh, he laced a one-out double to right center to set the table for Tapia who provided the winning RBI single for the third walk-off in four nights.

May 28th: 6-2 over Arizona

Hero: Chris Iannetta

Sidekicks: Jairo Díaz, Chad Bettis

In a low-scoring affair that still managed to provide two lead changes, the Rockies got it done a little earlier in the ballgame. In the driving rain, Iannetta put a charge into one for a two-run homer to put up Colorado 4-2 in the seventh. Before they could count their chickens, Bettis would need to close the door on the always troublesome Diamondbacks for the final three. He did exactly that, slamming the door on the NL West foes. In the process, Díaz earned his first career win and Bettis earned his first career save.

May 29th: 5-4 over Arizona

Hero: Scott Oberg

Sidekicks: Carlos Estévez, Bryan Shaw

With starting pitchers for both teams tapping out early, the bullpen was pressed with deciding the score. Colorado’s would get the job done with four solid innings. Excluding a solo home run surrendered by Seunghwan Oh, a trio of relievers secured a series victory: Estévez, Shaw and Oberg, who earned his first career save.

May 30th: 11-10 walk-off over Arizona

Hero: Daniel Murphy

Sidekicks: David Dahl & Ryan McMahon

In a wild slugfest with six lead changes, the youngsters Dahl and McMahon each recorded two runs batted in and two runs scored during their multi-hit games. But it would be Murphy who put his club over to end a 47 game stretch that kept the Rockies from being a .500 team. With a walk-off single the opposite way to score Story in the 10th, Murphy put an exclamation mark on the four-game sweep of the D-Backs.

Two more decisive wins over Toronto gave Colorado seven consecutive victories and a 27-14 record since that awful 3-12 start to the year. They moved from fourth to second in the NL West and have climbed to within a half-game of the final Wild Card spot. With a lot left to play, a lot has been proven already by this ballclub over this homestand.

“We got ours out early and this is the game we play,” Wolters describes of the funk that plagues every team and is now a thing of the past for the Rockies. “This is the team we know we’ve had. There’s no worry. We expect to win every game. We know it’s not going to happen, but we’re going to come back the next day and work our tails off to get a win. That’s where our mindset is. That’s where every guy’s mindset is.”