Jon Gray had his longest outing of his career as the Rockies hit three home runs en route to a 8-2 victory. Gray went 7.1 innings and allowed 2 runs on five hits, three walks and six strikeouts. After his outing in St. Louis that I've driven from my memory, I could only hope that Gray would come out and make a statement; that's exactly what he did. He didn't have his best stuff today but made the pitches he needed to and was still effective, a great sign from a young pitcher.
The Red Sox struck first off a David Ortiz two-run homer to deep center field with two outs, scoring Xander Bogaerts who had singled on the pitch before. This would be Gray's only mistake of the game and it put the team in a hole early.
Red Sox starter Clay Buchholz cruised through the first three innings, retiring all nine batters he faced on an efficient 29 pitches. It looked like what we have seen from the Rockies through the first two games of the series; unable to make any solid contact and string hits together. Luckily, that wouldn't last long.
The Rockies struck in the fourth off a Carlos Gonzalez two-out, two-run home run that scored Charlie Blackmon, who led off the inning with a single. Gonzalez, who broke out of a terrible slump in a big way this series, finished the three games by going 6/12 with a home run, a double, three runs scored and two driven in.
Ortiz, who is hitting an outstanding .333/.418/.686 coming into today in his final season in the majors, doubled to lead off the bottom of the fourth leaving Gray in a jam. Gray induced two fly outs from Hanley Ramirez and Travis Shaw, whose out pushed Ortiz to third. After walking Chris Young, Gray struck out Blake Swihart on three pitches to snuff out the threat.
The Rockies continued to score and put up four more runs in the fifth. Gerardo Parra started the inning with a single to center followed by an epic at-bat by Trevor Story that ended with a home run over the Green Monster in left-center. Story, who found himself in an 0-2 count, fouled off four straight pitches before working himself to a 2-2 count and finally got a pitch he could drive.
Daniel Descalso continued the hit parade with an infield single and Dustin Garneau followed that up with another home run, this one to dead left, that bounced off the Green Monster light pole. This was Garneau's first home run of the year and third of his career and brought the score to 6-2 going into the Red Sox's half of the fifth.
The Rockies threatened again in the top of the seventh when they loaded the bases. Descalso and Blackmon both singled for their second hits of the night and DJ LeMahieu reached on an error by Boston's third baseman Travis Shaw. Nolan Arenado drove in Descalso on a sac fly to left and CarGo grounded out to end the inning.
Carlos 'Wild Thing' Estevez came in with one out in the eighth and a runner on first and promptly induced two quick fly balls.
LeMahieu added a run in the top of the ninth with his patented opposite-field single to drive in Descalso, who doubled off the Green Monster to begin the inning, increasing the lead to 8-2.
Estevez began the ninth and got Ramirez to line out to Gonzalez before Jake McGee entered the game despite the six run lead. McGee, who had not thrown since May 21, was looking to get some work in after four days of rest against the back end of the Red Sox Lineup.. He struck out Shaw on a nasty curveball but let up a two-out double to Chris Young. McGee walked Blake Swihart before finally inducing a groundout to end the game.
The Rockies pitching staff ended Jackie Bradley Jr's hitting streak at 29 games, the fourth longest streak in Red Sox history.
The Rockies went 6-6 through an extremely difficult stretch in their season. They now head home for a seven game homestand with three against the San Francisco Giants and four against the Cincinnati Reds.
Tomorrow's game is at 6:40 MT as Tyler Chatwood faces off against Matt Cain.