ROCKIES LOSE TO BREWERS BUT GO 5-2 ON HOMESTAND
Homestand ends on Bard meltdown
The Rockies will meet you in Seattle, Jon Gray.
Just don’t be shocked if Bud Black seems a little sleepless following two straight losses, both of them kidney punches, to Milwaukee.
“I did hear Jon pitched well (Sunday),” Black, the Rockies’ manager, said after his Colorado squad dropped its second straight one-run contest to the Brewers, falling 7-6 before 34,224 at Coors Field.
“(Rockies trainer) Keith (Dugger) talked to Jon after the game. Jon was encouraged … (Gray’s) going to meet us in Seattle and we’ll discuss plans for Jon (when) we get to Seattle.”
Gray, the Rockies’ veteran righthanded starter and an unrestricted free agent after this season, allowed two runs over four innings and struck out six in a 62-pitch rehab start for Class AAA Albuquerque on Sunday afternoon. He’s been on the injured list because of a right flexor strain since June 5.
Black could use another experienced arm, as the club placed left-handed starter Austin Gomber on the 10-day injured list early Sunday afternoon because of tightness in his left forearm.
The Rockies wrapped up a sevengame homestand with a 5-2 mark but now head back on the road for a fivegame swing that starts with two in Seattle and three in Milwaukee next weekend. Any rotation help is welcome help.
“We had some things penciled out (for Gray), yes,” Black said during his postgame news conference via Zoom.
Meanwhile, things for Rockies closer Daniel Bard continue to look a little, um, sketchy.
Milwaukee got to the right-handed reliever for the second time in three days, rallying for three hits and a run off the Colorado stopper in the top of the ninth to salvage a series split on Blake Street.
The hosts won on Thursday and Friday, only to see the Brewers pick up a 6-5 victory Saturday night and a 7-6
cision on Father’s Day.
A leadoff single by pinch hitter Jace Peterson, a Peterson steal of second, and an RBI single by Daniel Vogelbach in the final frame allowed the visitors to break a 6-6 tie.
Bard gave up a run on three hits in the ninth. During the second installment of the four-game series, the North Carolina native had surrendered two hits and an earned run, blowing a one-run lead in a contest the Rockies would eventually rally to take in 10 innings.
“There (have) been some ups and downs, like any closer,” Black said of Bard on Sunday. “It’s gonna happen.”
The last three contests between the Rockies (30-43) and Brewers (40-32) were decided by a run apiece. And a wild, windy series finale was at its wildest and windiest in the bottom of the sixth.
Milwaukee roughed up Colorado starter Chi Chi Gonzalez to forge a 6-0 lead — all six runs were earned, and most came after loud contact — through the top of the sixth before the hosts got up off the mat.
And the Rockies got up swinging.
The hosts bombed Milwaukee for six runs and eight hits in the bottom of the sixth to chase starter Eric Lauer, who’d held the Rockies scoreless on two hits through the first five frames. They were crueler still to reliever
Zack Godley, who got rocked for three earned runs and two home runs while recording only one out.
Raimel Tapia got the party started with a leadoff single, a shot up the middle that extended the longest hitting streak in the majors to 17 games.
Yonathan Daza followed with a 412-foot shot into the left-field bleachers, as that sun-drenched section of Coors Field became the target practice bullseye for the rest of the inning.
Trevor Story answered Daza’s tater with a homer of his own, a 466-foot rainbow deep into left that cut the Brewers’ lead to 6-3. C.J. Cron went yard — another homer to left, this one 456 feet — immediately after Charlie Blackmon’s hit, bringing in two more runs and bringing the hosts to within 6-5.
Joshua Fuentes went low on a 1-2 breaking ball and golfed it out over the left-field wall for a 377foot homer that knotted the contest at 6-6.
“Hitting’s contagious,” Fuentes said later, “especially with our team.”
Sunday’s contest marked the third time in franchise history the Rox hit four home runs in an inning. And it was the second time already this season, with Colorado having already torched the Dodgers for four in the same frame back on April 2. The Rockies, strangely enough, went on to lose both of those four-homer contests.