Rockies bounce back from toughest loss of season to remain perfect in road sets

The Colorado Rockies bounced back from their toughest loss of the season, blowing an 8-3 lead on Saturday, but hanging onto a 6-1 lead on Sunday, using four solo home runs to ultimately beat the Cincinnati Reds 6-4 and remain perfect in their series’ away from Coors Field. Colorado is now 15-7 on the road and 6-0 in sets of at least three games.

Starting pitcher Kyle Freeland did his job against a veteran 17-years his senior in Bronson Arroyo whose craftiness gave out over time and turned into batting practice.

Cincinnati picked up an incredibly frustrating run (from Freeland’s perspective) in a first inning that could have been much worse. It started with an unusual occurrence — a Nolan Arenado error where he rushed a barehanded attempt on Billy Hamilton but instead deflected the ball of his own face, needing to take a moment to recover from a cut he suffered just under his left eye.

Because Hamilton’s legs were created in a lab by the finest mad scientists, he was able to swipe second and third with relative ease. Those were his 22nd and 23rd stolen bases of the season. He has more steals than 19 MLB teams.

Once the error allowed Hamilton to reach base, it was almost a foregone conclusion that he would score … and he did, but somehow Freeland wouldn’t allow anything more than that. After walking Jose Peraza and allowing the third stolen base of the inning, the Rockies were looking at a second-and-third, nobody out situation with Joey Votto at the plate. After a long battle with Votto resulted in a groundout that scored Hamilton, Freeland buckled down and picked off Peraza before inducing a groundout from Eugenio Suarez to limit the damage to one unearned run.

The Rockies rookie settled in nicely after that, throwing just six pitches in the third inning, the first clean frame for the Rockies pitching in their last 11 attempts.

He also “helped his own cause” in the bottom of that inning, hitting a slug-bunt double to left field — the first extra-base hit of his career — after a single from Ryan Hanigan to give the Rockies runners on second and third with nobody out. A sac fly from Charlie Blackmon and a single up the middle from DJ LeMahieu quickly gave Colorado a 2-1 lead.

Carlos Gonzalez extended the Rockies lead to 3-1 with a solo home run in the third. He had been stuck on 199 career homers since April 25, but finally hit number 200, making him the fifth player in franchise history to reach that mark. He needs one more to tie Dante Bichette for fourth place on the all-time Rockies list.

CarGo’s bat has looked more and more lively over the past few weeks, but every time it has seemed he was going to go on one of his signature hot streaks, he has had a setback. He has reached base six times over the last two games.

The Rockies got three more runs on three unlikely home runs over the next two innings from Freeland (first career) LeMahieu, and Pat Valaika.

It was the first time a Rockie pitcher has hit a road home run since Kyle Kendrick (really?) did it in Septemeber of 2015. It was the first time a Rockies pitcher has had multiple extra-base hits since Juan Nicasio in 2011.

Freeland took a 6-1 lead into the sixth inning but the Reds own power-hitting showed up. A pair of homers from Votto and Scott Schebler — who delivered the big home run in Saturday’s game — each went deep to chase Colorado’s starter from the game and make it a 6-4 game.

Chris Rusin came on to finish the sixth for Freeland and did so but gave up a double to Devin Mesoraco to lead off the seventh. He didn’t rattle, though, striking out Patrick Kivlehan and getting Hamilton before giving way to Adam Ottavino who ended the threat by inducing a groundout from Peraza, LeMahieu making a nice play up the middle.

Ottavino stayed on in the eighth and once again the Reds got a lead-off runner, a single from Votto. (Boy, he is good.) He then gave up a tough-luck jam shot hit to Suarez to present an eerily familiar scenario. Schebler at the plate as the go-ahead run. This time, the Rox finally got him out, Ottavino employing one of his best slider, which is saying something:

Huge strikeout by Otto and he does only like he can, nasty pic.twitter.com/I1bwDoGFo4

— Jake Shapiro (@Shapalicious) May 21, 2017

Otto backed that up with another K on the slider, this time getting Arismendy Alcantara, to end that threat and hand the ball to Greg Holland in the ninth.

Holland walked Mesoraco to start the final frame, a cardinal sin, but he struck out Scooter Gennett, got Hamilton to pop out on one pitch, and K’d Peraza on four to record his 19th save in 19 attempts. The guy has simply been a godsend for this team.

It was a battle in every inning (well, except the third) but the Rockies came out on top yet again, showing that resilience is their calling card in 2017.

LeMahieu’s 4-for-5 day brought his batting average up to .299

The Colorado Rockies have never had a winning record in the first two months of the same season. Until now.

Colorado moved to 28-17 on the season, maintained their lead in the National League in winning percentage.