On March 29, 1987, Hulk Hogan performed probably the most famous body slam of all time, lifting Andre the Giant above his head and throwing him to the mat while 93,173 people lost their collective minds.
On a rainy Friday night, in front of a substantially smaller crowd, we saw another Giant get slammed when Trevor Story hit one of the “grand” variety, paving the way for a 6-5 win for the Colorado Rockies over the San Francisco Giants.
The visitors came into the game with some confidence considering they had Johnny Cueto on the mound and took an early lead but the Rockies offense did their part in a close and cold home win.
Giants third baseman Eduardo Nunez got the scoring started in the second with an RBI double off the top of the fence the players have affectionately dubbed the “Bridich Barrier.” It looked for a moment like Chatwood and the Rockies would be spared the worst of it, but sharp singles from Chris Marrero and Denard Span plated another pair of runs for the Giants in the frame and the road team led 3-0 after two.
Tyler Chatwood showed some signs of imploding but never really did, powering through six innings, giving up four earned runs on seven hits while walking three and striking out two.
The Rockies had themselves quite the interesting fourth inning. It began innocuously enough. Nolan Arenado grounded out before Carlos Gonzalez, Mark Reynolds, and Gerardo Parra battled for tough singles to load the bases. Then slumping Trevor Story came to the plate and promptly unloaded the bases with the first grand slam of his career, and the first for the Rockies in 2017, taking his team from down 3-0 to up 4-3. The blast went 400 feet according to Statcast.
After another single, this time from Tony Wolters, and a sac bunt from Chatwood, Charlie Blackmon hit what looked like could be a double but turned into a two-run, inside-the-park home run when Hunter Pence misplayed the ball in right field. It was the first in-the-parker for the Rockies since Brandon Barnes hit one in June of 2014.It was the 18th in Rockies history they’ve hit a home run that didn’t go over any fencing.
The last time an MLB team hit a grand slam and inside-the-park HR in the same inning was the Red Sox in 2011. Before that, it was the New York Giants in 1950.
Colorado came into the fourth down by three and left the inning up by three.
The Giants got one right back in the top of the fifth on a solo home run from Brandon Belt, his fourth of the year, to make it 6-4, Rockies.
Mike Dunn experienced his first bit of trouble in 2017 in the seventh, giving up a couple of singles after getting a quick out from Span. Adam Ottavino replaced him with an out in the inning and got Buster Posey to pop out and Brandon Crawford to ground out to end the threat, preserve the lead, and save Dunn from being charged with his first run or two of the season.
Ottavino stayed in the eighth and gave up back-to-back singles to Nunez and Joe Panik, the second of which was enough in the gap to score Nunez and make it 6-5. Otto seemed to be running out of gas or losing the touch or something because he really lost the feel for the strike zone. He walked Chris Marrero before finally getting the first out of the inning on a line out to right field.
Jake McGee came in with a pair of lefties due up and got the job done, getting a pair of popouts to keep the Rockies lead at 6-5.
Greg Holland earned his ninth consecutive save since joining the Rockies with a clean inning punctuated by a pair of punchouts. Second place in saves in the NL behind Holland are Tony Watson of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Neftali Feliz of the Milwaukee Brewers, and Fernando Rodney of Arizona who all have five.
The Rockies improved to 11-6 and took sole possession of first place in the National League West. They are tied with the Washington Nationals for best record in the NL. More importantly, the Rockies moved to 7-0 on the season in one-run games. They won just 12 one-run games all of last season, losing 20.
