Rockies walk off again to sweep Diamondbacks

DENVER – Daniel Murphy hasn’t had the beginning to his Colorado Rockies career that he wanted. Playing just a few games before breaking his finger and missing nearly a month, he was one of the few members of the lineup who came into Thursday afternoon’s game without at least decent hitting numbers.

But he got the Rockies on the board in the first and walked it off in the 11th for Colorado’s fourth walk-off victory of the homestand, an 11-10 win in a back-and-forth slugfest that delivered a four-game sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Starter Kyle Freeland had another rough outing, struggling to put hitters away with either two strikes or two outs.

The Diamondbacks jumped all over him to start the game with a three-run first inning.

Ketel Marte led off with a single before Freeland got a pair of quick outs. But Adam Jones doubled over the head of Yonathan Daza in center who bobbled the ball, allowing the first run to score. Then Freeland missed again with a fastball to the struggling Christian Walker who hit a two-run homer on a liner to left to put Arizona up 3-0 before the Rockies had come to the plate.

That lead didn’t last long, though, as Colorado responded with a three-run frame of their own in the bottom of the first.

Raimel Tapia got it started with a line drive double to right and he advanced to third on a ball in the dirt.

He remained there while Trevor Story struck out, David Dahl walked, and Nolan Arenado was plunked to load the bases.

Colorado caught a break when a hard grounder off the bat of Daniel Murphy snuck by the infield to score a pair.

After a Ryan McMahon walk, Tony Wolters hit a sac fly to left to tie it.

Freeland was cruising through the second but came upon one of his most frustrating encounters of the season, grooving a fastball to the opposing pitcher Taylor Clarke who hammered it to left for a solo homer to put the D-Backs on top again.

But the back-and-forth continued in the bottom of the second when the Rockies retook the lead on a triple from Story and Dahl’s fifth home run of the season, both screaming line drives to left field.

Freeland’s struggles continued, however, and the game was tied again before he recorded an out thanks to a triple from Tim Locastro and a single by Eduardo Escobar.

The Rockies offense was undeterred, keeping the pedal to the metal in the third with a single from Murphy and McMahon’s sixth home run of the year, a no-doubter into the second deck in right field.

When the dust settled on the third inning, Colorado held a 7-5 lead and it looked like this might become a classic Coors Field slugfest.

But things quieted down for a moment when each team went to their bullpen. For the Rockies, that meant two excellent innings of work for Chad Bettis who gave up one hit and no runs while striking out four. Also, Jairo Diaz picked up a couple of innings, allowing two hits but no runs while striking out three.

The Rockies added an insurance run in the fifth thanks to a double for McMahon and a single for Wolters and that stood as the lone difference after Mike Dunn walked the first batter of the eighth then gave up a two-run jack to Escobar.

Bryan Shaw came into the 8-7 game and gave up a single to Jones on a grounder up the middle. Walker followed with another one up the middle that Daza overran in center field for a crucial error that allowed Jones to score the tying run all the way from first and the runner to get to third.

Shaw was able to get Illdemaro Vargas to fly out to shallow left, not deep enough to score the run, but Nick Ahmed spiked a grounder that snuck just by Arenado at third for a double that swung the game back in favor of the Diamondbacks. Carson Kelly followed that up with Arizona’s third grounder up the middle for a single to score another run to put the Diamondbacks up 10-8 before Bud Black went back to his bullpen.

Jake McGee was called upon and struck out CJ Cron but gave up yet another single to Marte and the Diamondbacks had batted around. McGee got Locastro to fly out to left in his second at-bat of the inning, but the damage was done.

But for the fourth time in the game, the Rockies answered Arizona’s scoring rally with one of their own.

Ian Desmond pinch-hit to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning and worked a full count before running into a high fastball for his sixth home run of the season, an opposite-field shot that landed well over the wall in right.

Chris Iannetta and Tapia followed with easy outs but Story kept the inning alive with a single to left and Dahl gave himself a career-high four hits in the game with a single the other way.

That gave Arenado a chance with two away and runners at the corners. He fell behind 1-2 but stayed on a fastball away from him and gave the Diamondbacks a piece of their own medicine with a groundball single up the middle to tie the game.

Arizona went to reliever Andrew Chafin who walked Murphy but got McMahon looking on a slider at the knees to keep the game at 10-10 going into the ninth.

Scott Oberg pitched a clean ninth but the Rockies were unable to mount anything against Chafin in the bottom half and the game went into extras.

Seunghwan Oh pitched the 10th and worked around a one-out walk to give the Rockies another chance at the walk-off.

Tapia struck out to begin the inning but Story pulled a double inside the line. Dahl, looking for his fifth hit in the game, couldn’t come up with another on a grounder to second that did move Story up a base. The Diamondbacks elected to intentionally pass on Arenado but Murphy made them pay for it with his fifth career walk-off RBI.

The Rockies are now back over .500 with a record of 28-27.

Stats

Kyle Freeland: 3 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

Chad Bettis: 2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 4 K

Jairo Diaz: 2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K

Mike Dunn: 0.0 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 0 K

Bryan Shaw: 0.1 IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 0 BB, 0 K

Jake McGee: 0.2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 1 K

Scott Oberg: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K

David Dahl: 4-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI, BB (HR: 5)

Ryan McMahon: 3-for-4, 2 R, 2 RBI (HR: 6)

Daniel Murphy: 2-for-4, 1 R, 2 RBI

Ian Desmond: 1-for-1, 1 R, 1 RBI (HR: 6)

Trevor Story: 3-for-5, 2 R

Nolan Arenado: 1-for-4, 1 R, 1 RBI

Tony Wolters: 1-for-3, 2 RBI

Raimel Tapia: 1-for-5, 1 R