There is very little that can numb the pain that the Colorado Rockies and their fans have experienced over the last two months.
A walk-off win over the Arizona Diamondbacks at Coors Field on a perfect Wednesday afternoon in Lower Downtown Denver may as close as it gets.
In the bottom of the ninth, Trevor Story was plunked to set the stage for Nolan Arenado, who absolutely hammered one to left for his eighth career walk-off RBI and his third career walk-off home run, his first since the famous Father’s Day cycle-completer.
It capped a 7-6 win that saw the offense battle back and Kyle Freeland continue to make slow but steady progress back toward being his best self.
The Diamondbacks jumped ahead 2-0 in the first. Tim Locastro singled and scored on a double in the gap off the bat of Ketel Marte who was plated by a two-out single up the middle from Christian Walker.
Freeland settled in after that, striking out four in a row at one point.
Colorado got on the board in the second after Ian Desmond walked, moved to third on a Raimel Tapia single, and scored on a sac bunt initiated by Garrett Hampson.
They tied it up in the third thanks to a single from Story, a double by Arenado and an RBI groundout from Yonder Alonso.
After four high quality and efficient innings, Freeland lost it in the sixth, giving up a double to left to Marte and a home run to center for Eduardo Escobar. Wilmer Flores added another homer to make it 5-2, Diamondbacks.
The Rockies counterpunched in the bottom half of the inning with singles from Alonso and Tapia and a pinch hit three-run jack off the bat of Ryan McMahon. His 14th longball of the year tied the game at 5-5.
That’s where the contest remained until the top of the ninth when Scott Oberg ran into some terrible misfortune.
He retired the first two batters he faced but issued a walk to Jake Lamb. Still, he made his pitch to Marte, jamming him hard for a pop up at 68 mph off the bat. Unfortunately for Colorado, it fell into no-man’s land in shallow centerfield and Lamb was able to race all the way around the bases to score the go-ahead run.
But the Rockies took care of all that in the bottom of the ninth.
