Marquez Ks 11, Rox offense wakes up in big win over Arizona

The Colorado Rockies have broken their franchise record for road victories in a season that continues to be confounding and amazing in equal parts. Coming off a brutal sweep at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers, they achieve this incredible feat with one of their best wins of the season.

Friday night’s contest between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Rockies looked like a classic pitcher’s duel from the get-go. The home team sent perennial All-Star and former Cy Young winner Zack Greinke to the hill and the visitors matched with German Marquez, who has been on an absolute tear in the second half and is threatening to break his club’s all-time mark for strikeouts.

Both men were fantastic, matching each other over seven innings (7.1 for Greinke) and giving up two runs. Marquez, in particular, was brilliant, striking out 11 in the game to become only the third pitcher in franchise history (Ubaldo Jiminez, Pedro Astacio) to record 200 Ks in a season.

The offense, which has been stuck on the mud all road trip, rallied late against the Arizona bullpen to complete one of their best all-around wins of the season.

As is par for the course, the Diamondbacks took the lead in the first inning that continues to plague Rockies pitching. Jon Jay led the game off with a double over the head of Charlie Blackmon in center field. Marquez bounced back to strike out Eduardo Escobar but David Peralta turned on a fastball in the highest and tightest portion of the zone and launched it over the wall in right field for a two-run home run.

Marquez quickly settled in and would retire the next seven straight.

The Rockies got one back in the fifth. Carlos Gonzalez drew a one-out walk and moved up to second base on a wild pitch. That set Ian Desmond up perfectly for his no-hit breaking groundball single up the middle that also plated the first run of the game for Colorado, pulling them to within one.

They managed to pull even in the sixth with a two-out rally. Blackmon turned on a well-placed breaking ball down and in, ripping it into right field for a double. DJ LeMahieu, who has been struggling at the plate lately, actually managed to stay back on that patented Greinke curveball and went down to golf it.

He lathered the pitch over the head of Peralta in left for a game-tying RBI double.

The tie stayed intact until Colorado busted out for a four-run eighth inning. It began when Gerardo Parra pinch hit for Tony Wolters and stayed back on a beautiful curveball to ground it right back up the middle for a single. Matt Holliday pinch-hit in the pitcher’s spot but struck out. Blackmon was hit by a pitch before a LeMahieu grounder back to the pitcher that Arizona was unable to turn into a double play.

That left room for David Dahl to come up with one of the biggest hits of his young career, a simple soft liner into left that scored Parra and gave the Rockies the lead.

Nolan Arenado followed with a desperately-needed (for him and the team) RBI single through the right side that plated LeMahieu.

The big blow came from Desmond once again when he lofted one into shallow right for a tw0-run single and suddenly Colorado held a 6-2 advantage.

Adam Ottavino came on for the bottom of the eighth and surrendered a leadoff single to Socrates Brito but he retired the next three in order.

Wade Davis gave up a leadoff double to Paul Goldschmidt in the ninth but retired the next three to finish off the win.

The Rockies went 5-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

Final Stats:

German Marquez: 7 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 11 K

Adam Ottavino: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

Wade Davis: 1 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

Ian Desmond: 1-for-2, 1 RBI

DJ LeMahieu: 1-for-3, 1 RBI

Charlie Blackmon: 1 -for-3, 1 R

What’s Next:

The second game of the series sees Antonio Senzatela face off against Patrick Corbin. First pitch at 6:10 Mountain Time.