Rockies lose on walkoff to Reds 6-5

After a valiant comeback in the eighth inning to tie the game, the Rockies lost on a walk-off single in the ninth inning, 6-5.

After a quick first inning, Bettis surrendered a lead-off single to Brandon Phillips before Jay Bruce and Adam Duvall took advantage of the homer-friendly atmosphere of a day game at Great American Ballpark and hit back-to-back home runs. Bettis then retired the next three batters of the second inning on three pitches.

Bettis was on cruise control for the rest of his outing, needing only 78 pitches to get through six innings of work as retired the last 15 batters he face after the Duvall home run. Bettis finished the game with 6 IP, 3 H 3 ER, 5 K and 0 BB.

The Rockies hitters struggled against Raisel Iglesias in their first time facing the young Reds pitcher. Iglesias shut the Rockies down in order through the first three innings before DJ LeMahieu led off the fourth inning with a single that started the first Rockies rally. One out later, Cargo doubled LeMahieu home. Cargo then scored on a Gerrado Parra single to draw the Rockies within one run.

The seventh inning seemed sure to doom the Rockies as seemingly everything went wrong. With two outs, Dustin Garneau doubled forcing Walt Weiss to pinch hit Ryan Raburn for Bettis despite his low pitch count in an attempt to tie up the game. At first, the plan seemed to work as Raburn singled driving in Dustin Garneau. After a pitching change, however, the Reds challenged that Garneau did not touch third base and Adrian Johnson ruled that Garneau was out. After the Rockies forced a video replay, the call was upheld and the inning over.

In the bottom of the seventh Justin Miller allowed three consecutive doubles including one that Ben Paulsen misplayed because of the sun and the game looked to be getting out of reach.

However, in the eighth inning the Rockies managed to score three runs on a bases loaded fielder's choice by Parra and a two-run, two-out double by Ben Paulsen to tie up the game.

The game looked sure to be headed for extra innings until Walt Weiss inexplicably decided to bring in long man Christian Bergman to pitch the ninth inning of a tie game. Bergman gave up a lead-off single to Phillips who moved to third on Bruce's single. After a strikeout that allowed a little glimmer of hope, Tucker Barnhart singled in Phillips to end the game.