Hey 19: Rockies roll H

ROCKIES 19, DIAMONDBACKS 2 Arizona actually turns to position players on mound during onslaught

its, runs, homers and hyperbole can’t adequately describe what happened at Coors Field on Wednesday night.

So maybe this factoid can do the trick: Arizona second baseman Daniel Descalso came in to pitch in the fourth inning, the earliest any true position player has pitched in a big-league game since Milwaukee’s Sal Bando on Aug. 29, 1979, when the Royals beat the Brewers 18-8 at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo.

Wednesday night, when all was said and done and the baseball history books had been deciphered, the Rockies had bludgeoned the Diamondbacks 19-2. Colorado scored 19 runs for the first time since Sept. 25, 2011, at Houston, when they beat the Astros 19-3. The Rockies have scored 19 runs four times and a franchise-record tying 20 on three occasions since 1996.

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, before Wednesday, there had

never been a day in majorleague history that saw multiple teams with at least a 17run lead through four innings. Earlier in the evening, Cleveland led Cincinnati 170 after four innings en route to a 194 win. Then came the Rockies’ onslaught.

The Diamondbacks came into the game having won nine consecutive games at Coors Field, their longest win streak at an opposing ballpark in team history. So maybe they were due for a big fall.

But this was ridiculous. The score was 191 — after five innings — and Descalso was still on the mound as the Dbacks’ sacrificial lamb, as he served up home runs to Carlos Gonzalez and Rockies starter German Marquez, who mashed a solo shot 447 feet to left for his first career home run.

Four Rockies launched home runs, and Gonzalez had two of them, along with six RBIs and his first multihome run game since last Sept. 12 at Arizona. All told, the Rockies had 19 hits, four of them coming off Descalso and one coming against first baseman Alex Avila, who relieved Descalso in the seventh inning. It was Avila’s first majorleague pitching performance.

On almost any other night, Marquez’s sixinning, tworun, fivehit performance might have grabbed headlines. On this night — save for his home run — he was a footnote.

And to think that Arizona led 10 in the first inning on Paul Goldschmidt’s home run. But the Rockies immediately struck back, scoring five runs in the top of the frame off starter Shelby Miller, the big blow a threerun bomb by Ian Desmond that traveled 478 feet and landed on the concourse beyond the leftfield bleachers.

Miller pitched just one inning and departed with tightness in his elbow.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post Rockies right fielder Carlos Gonzalez watches the flight of his three-run homer against the Diamondbacks during the fourth inning Wednesday night at Coors Field. It was Gonzalez’s second homer of the night as Colorado took Arizona pitching deep five times.

Andy Cross, The Denver Post Rockies pitcher German Marquez celebrates in the dugout after hitting a 447foot home run during the fifth inning Wednesday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks and pitcher/infielder Daniel Descalso at Coors Field.