ARENADO BEATS D-BACKS WITH WALK-OFF HOMER
With the shadows growing long Wednesday afternoon at Coors Field, Nolan Arenado walked to the plate with the weight of his baseball world on his shoulders.
Colorado’s all-star third baseman had failed twice already. In the fifth inning, with Trevor Story on second base, Arenado had bounced out to Arizona shortstop Nick Ahmed to scuttle a potential rally. In the sixth, with two outs, the bases loaded and the game tied 5-5, Arenado popped out to short. That left him with a .143 average with two outs and runners in scoring position since the allstar break.
But when Arenado’s chance for redemption arrived in the ninth inning, he didn’t miss.
He drilled closer Archie Bradley’s first-pitch, 95 mph fastball just inside the left-field foul pole for a two-run, walk-off home run to lift Colorado to a 7-6 win. Bradley plunked Story to put the tying run on.
“It felt so great,” said Arenado, who tied Story for the team lead with 27 home runs. “If we would have lost this game, I would have blamed myself. It would have been, for sure, on me.
“I had an opportunity with the bases loaded and with a man on second, and I couldn’t come through. It would have hurt.”
Earlier this month, Arenado reached an amazing milestone, driving in the 700th run of his ca
reer, and doing it in just 989 games. He became just the fourth active player to reach that pinnacle in fewer than 1,000 games. The others? Albert Pujols (863 games), Miguel Cabrera (964) and Ryan Braun (972).
“I love hitting with runners in scoring position, with guys on base. That’s what I pride myself on,” said Arenado, whose .373 average with runners in scoring position ranks fifth in the National League. “But it’s been tough lately, one of those grinds. I have hit the ball hard, too, but sometimes right at people.”
Wednesday marked his third career walk-off home run, his first since Father’s Day 2017, when he completed the cycle with a walkoff homer against the San Francisco Giants at Coors. Arenado’s eight walk-off RBIs are the thirdmost in franchise history behind Todd Helton and Dante Bichette, who both had nine walk-off RBIs.
The Rockies’ win snapped their five-game losing skid and prevented a Diamondbacks sweep.
“Nolan should feel really good about that swing,” manager Bud Black said. “Let’s hope this (sparks us). There are a lot of times when one swing can get you going. I thought we played a really, really solid game today.”
Just a short time before Arenado’s heroics, it looked as if Colorado, which is enduring one of the worst stretches in franchise history, was going to lose another game. The Diamondbacks squeezed out a run against closer Scott Oberg in the top of the ninth. Oberg’s sin was issuing a two-out walk to pinch-hitter Jake Lamb. Then Ketel Marte blooped a single into shallow left-center, in just the perfect place, allowing Lamb to race from first to home for the go-ahead run.
Colorado got an uneven performance from starter Kyle Freeland.
In innings two through five, the lefty resembled the pitcher from 2018 who finished 17-7 with a 2.85 ERA, the lowest full-season ERA by a starter in franchise history. In those four innings, he held Arizona to one hit and struck out six.
Unfortunately, in the first and sixth innings, the 2019 version of Freeland showed up. In the first, the D-backs rapped out four hits, including an RBI double by Marte and a run-scoring single by Wilmer Flores.
Arizona took a 5-2 lead with a three-run sixth that featured a two-run homer by Eduardo Escobar (homer No. 27) and a solo shot to left by Wilmer Flores. Escobar’s homer was a killer. Freeland had him down 1-2, then threw a back-door slider that Escobar blasted 425 feet.
“I have to tip my hat, because I thought I threw a perfect pitch and he hit it out,” Freeland said.
Colorado tied the game in the bottom of the frame on Ryan McMahon‘s pinch-hit, three-run, 367foot flyball home run to left off reliever Yoshihisa Hirano’s first pitch.