Woo-hoo, LeMahieu! Homer in 9th avoids ugly sweep
ROCKIES 9, GIANTS 8
SAN FRANCISCO » The quiet in the Rockies’ dugout contrasted starkly with the raucous home crowd at AT&T Park. Adam Ottavino had just surrendered two runs in the eighth to give a one-run lead back to San Francisco, and Colorado was three outs from its 10thstraight divisional defeat.
Then, with one on and one out in the ninth, DJ LeMahieu stepped to the dish and smacked a two-run homer to left, yanking the Rockies up from the baseball abyss — on Thursday, anyway.
“When the momentum shifted back to them in a big way after they scored two runs against Ottavino, it takes a special moment and a special swing to get it back on our side,” manager Bud Black said. “DJ put a great swing on that ball.”
Nolan Arenado put Colorado ahead in the first with a 409-foot blast to center, his 10th career home run at AT&T Park, which surpassed Troy Tulowitzki for the most dingers by a Rockies hitter at that stadium. But San Francisco immediately responded in the bottom of the frame via Brandon Belt’s two-run homer off Jon Gray, putting the Giants back ahead 2-1.
From there, Gray and Giants starter Chris Stratton put up a couple of zeros on the scoreboard before more momentum swings, first by way of Colorado’s fourrun fourth.
The Rockies began that frame with four straight hits, with Gerardo Parra’s single and Ian Desmond’s triple swinging the lead back to 4-2. LeMahieu’s two-out single further extended the score to 5-2, figuring to give Gray a sizable cushion to work with.
But as Gray noted, he “didn’t have a whole lot of feel for anything today.”
The Colorado right-hander gave the lead right back in the bottom of the inning, as Joe Panik’s double and Gorkys Hernandez’s two-RBI single tied the game at 5-5 in the latest yo-yo loop that has been Gray’s promise-laden season.
“That was frustrating for Jon, and frustrating for all of us,” Black said. “He gave up a leadoff walk to (Andrew) McCutchen, and he’s got to go after that guy
and really set the tone when it’s your opportunity to really send a message not only to the Giants, but to our group who had just scored four.”
It then turned into a relief battle in the fifth, with Chris Rusin spelling Gray for two scoreless innings while Ty Blach, a Regis Jesuit High School graduate, did the same for San Francisco as the score held heading into the seventh.
In that inning, Colorado finally got to Blach. Chris Iannetta — pinch hitting for Tony Wolters in a move enabled by the Rockies’ choice to carry three catchers on the roster — singled to lead off. Then Noel Cuevas, swinging for Rusin, doubled to set up LeMahieu’s go-ahead, two-run single that made it 7-5.
The Giants then nicked Jake McGee for an unearned run following the stretch, cutting the score to 7-6, before Ottavino let the lead get away for the second game this series. Wade Davis recorded his 22nd save with a onetwo-three ninth following LeMahieu’s homer, and the Rockies cemented their first win this season when trailing after eighth innings (1-37).
“It was a good one for us to win like that, because I feel like we’ve been on the other end of that for the last couple weeks,” LeMahieu said. “We came out with a lot of energy, a good mind-set — we were out to win a ballgame today.”