It looked for a moment like the Colorado Rockies were going to keep riding their scorching hot offense right to a sweep of the Atlanta Braves despite another rough outing for Tyler Anderson on Sunday.
But it was the Braves who would have the last laugh in a back-and-forth affair, a big three-run homer for Josh Donaldson proving to be the game-winner in the eighth.
Things got off to an absolutely brutal start for the Rox. The Braves took a 3-0 lead before making an out when Anderson served up a leadoff home run to Ozzie Albies, walked Josh Donaldson, then was taken way deep to center by Freddie Freeman. It looked for a moment like he would not be able to escape the first, but he did, shutting it down there and getting through a quick and clean second inning.
That’s when the Colorado offense got to work, beginning with a walk from Tony Wolters and a sac bunt by Anderson. Charlie Blackmon plated Colorado’s first run of the game with a single through the left side. Trevor Story followed that with a shot to right field for a ground-rule double, extending his hitting streak to 16 games.
With two outs and one away, Daniel Murphy suddenly had the chance to tie a game with a single but did better than that, ripping a line drive over the wall in right field for a three-run homer that gave the Rockies a 4-3 lead.
It was quite the turn of events considering how the game started, but the lead was remarkably short-lived.
Anderson coughed it up on the next pitch of the next half-frame, again grooving a fastball to Albies that was deposited beyond the wall in right.
Once again though, Anderson recovered, actually striking out the side in the third around a walk to Freeman.
The 4-4 stalemate lasted all of three batters as the Rockies took the lead in the fourth, getting some good situational hitting, which has been rare so far this season. Ian Desmond made it possible with a leadoff double to right and Garrett Hampson and Wolters executed the fundamental with a grounder to the right side and a sac fly respectively to score the run.
With almost a hilarious consistency, that lead didn’t last long either. Johan Camargo greeted Anderson with a triple on the first pitch of the bottom of the fourth, and he too was able to trot home on a sac fly. Tie game. Again.
Anderson got into some trouble in the fifth and caught a bad break on a Murphy error that loaded the bases with two outs and ran him from the game. DJ Johnson inherited the tough situation but got Camargo to fly out on a nice running catch in shallow left from David Dahl.
Desmond put the Rockies back on top in the do-si-do with a solo home run to right, his second round-tripper of the year.
Bryan Shaw came on to protect the one-run lead and gave up a leadoff double to Dansby Swanson but stranded him there with a trio of quick outs, lowering his ERA on the season to 1.06.
Bud Black handed the ball to Carlos Estevez in the seventh and he began by striking out Donaldson but lost Freeman to a walk after getting ahead 0-2. He got Ronald Acuna to pop up on the infield but Nick Markakis lined one to right for a double. Blackmon got over to cut the ball off nicely, making sure that Freeman couldn’t score with a good throw back in.
With two on and two out, Estevez got another pop-up, this time from Camargo on a 99 mph fastball, to strand both the potential tying and go-ahead runs.
The Rockies picked up an insurance run in the top of the eighth thanks to some good hustle and baserunning from Desmond who walked, a single from Wolters, and a misplay in left field by Camargo.
Seunghwan Oh took over in the bottom of the eighth and got Swanson to ground out then gave up a single on a first-pitch fastball to Tyler Flowers. He came back to get Ender Inciarte to fly out to left but Albies went down and got a two-strike cutter at his ankles and lofted it into shallow right to put runners at the corners with nobody out.
Donaldson one-upped him by going with a fastball in the uppermost and outermost part of the strike zone and hammered it over the wall in right field to swing the score back in favor of the Braves at 8-7.
Blackmon and Story gave the Rockies one last chance with back-to-back singles leading off the ninth, but Murphy, Arenado, and Dahl couldn’t get them in and the winning streak came to an end.
