Blasting out Astros
ROCKIES 3, ASTROS 2 Blackmon hits his first career walk-off home run to beat the reigning world champs Charlie Blackmon blasted his first career walk-off home run Wednesday night at Coors Field, besting the reigning world champion Houston Astros 3-2 in a
Blackmon hit a solo shot with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning off Astros reliever Collin McHugh to end the game.
“I mostly wanted to make sure I covered the fastball,” Blackmon said. “(McHugh) was beating some guys with his heater, and once I got ahead in the count, I was looking to get a pretty good swing off.”
That gave the raucous Rockies fans the last hurrah over the raucous Astros fans.
“It was a pretty good atmosphere tonight. There were a few more Bron- cos fans that I would’ve like to see,” Blackmon joked of the orange-clad Houston fans. “But it was fun. It felt like everybody in the crowd was into it, and we played hard all the way.”
Colorado tied the game on Nolan Arenado’s unconventional popout RBI with the bases loaded in the seventh inning, in which Houston third baseman J.D. Davis made a web-gem grab leaning over — and almost falling into — the Astros’ dugout. Speedster Raimel Tapia tagged from third base on play, scoring on a bad throw
by Davis to make it 2-2.
Carlos Gonzalez got the Rockies rolling in the first — and the purple-clad fans drowning out another strong showing by a large contingent of orange — with his 12th home run of the season, 417 feet to right off Houston starter Charlie Morton for a 1-0 hometeam lead.
“He’s throwing cheese all over the place,” Gonzalez said of Morton, “98 (mph) with a really good spinning curveball, so I was just ready to attack in that first at-bat. I got to a hitter’s count, 2-0, and he threw me a 97 (mph) fastball, middle in, that I was able to turn on.”
Meanwhile Jon Gray, recalled July 14 from a tuneup stint in Triple-A Albuquerque, turned in a second straight quality start after his midseason demotion. He finished with one earned run off one hit, two walks and a strikeout.
“I kicked everything back to the basics, and started throwing the way I can,” Gray said. “I was attacking the zone and filled it up with strikes, even though I wish I threw more strikes toward the end of the game.”
Rockies manager Bud Black liked what he saw from his starter.
“They’re an attacking club — they come out swinging — and Jon came out and attack them right back and made pitches,” Black said. “He had good use of the curveball at times, and a good three-pitch mix with the fastball, slider and curve.”
The right-handed Gray lived down in the zone with his fastball and was consistent with his offspeed pitches through the first three innings, retiring the initial nine Houston hitters he faced. Adversity reared itself in the fourth inning, though, when the Astros tagged Gray for two runs on a walk, a hit and two errors.
Those misplays — one on a botched groundball to Ian Desmond down the first-base line, and another on a catcher’s interference call on Tom Murphy — gave the Rockies’ two errors in consecutive games for the first time this season.
Though Colorado didn’t benefit from its usual elite defensive play (its .989 fielding percentage ranks second in the NL) against the Astros, it did get two call reversals on replay reviews that kept Gray’s premium outing afloat.
First, Alex Bregman’s leadoff triple in the sixth for Houston was ruled fan interference — and therefore an out — after a fan with an orange Astros jersey leaned over the left-field rail and deflected the ball that was being tracked by Gerardo Parra.
Gray used that out to settle into a one-two-three innings, and then benefited from an overturned call on Kyle Tucker’s attempted steal at second base to put an end to Houston’s quiet seventh. Gray was then spelled by Adam Ottavino in the eighth inning, and Wade Davis held the Astros scoreless in the ninth to earn the win, thanks to Blackman’s home run.