Rockies fall to Phillies in extras, 2-1

The Colorado Rockies dropped the final game of a four-game set to the Phillies on Thursday afternoon, losing 2-1 in 11 innings. Phillies first baseman Tommy Joseph drove in Michael Saunders, who hit a one-out double off Rockies reliever Scott Oberg, to end the game. The loss drops the Rockies to 31-18 overall and 9-1 in one run games. They finished the season-long ten-game road trip 7-3.

After scoring a combined 28 runs in the first three games of the series, the Rockies and Phillies had an old fashioned pitcher’s duel Tuesday afternoon in Philadelphia. Tyler Anderson continued his May resurgence, throwing seven innings and allowing just five hits and two walks, including a game tying solo home run off the bat of Tommy Joseph in the bottom of the seventh inning. He also had seven strikeouts en route to the Rockies’ fourth straight quality start. Anderson has a 2.55 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, and 11.7 K/9 in 24²⁄₃ innings so far in May. In case you thought the rotation would “sort itself out,” it looks like the decisions are only going to be that much harder once Jon Gray returns from the disabled list.

The Rockies scored their only run of the game in the fourth inning when Trevor Story lead off the inning with his seventh home run of the season. Story continues to look improved after having spent close to two week on the disable list with a sore shoulder.

The Phillies threatened in the fifth starting off the inning with a walk and a single with pitcher, Velasquez, coming to the plate. Never fear—Nolan Arenado is here:

Cesar Hernandez came to the plate and lined into a double play, with Anderson snagging the comebacker and doubling off Freddy Galvis at first to end the inning.

The Phillies did get on the board two innings later off a solo shot from Tommy Joseph to make it 1-1. They built another threat in the bottom of the eighth when Anderson gave up a leadoff double to Hernandez. Adam Ottavino came in and walked Aaron Altherr before striking out Odubel Herrera and Maikel Franco on two devastating sliders. Chris Rusin then came in and got Michael Saunders to ground out to keep the Phillies off the board.

The Rockies had plenty of base runners as they had 10 hits and a walk in the game but couldn’t string enough of them together in the same inning to generate any runs outside of the solo home run by Story. Blackmon singled with one out in the tenth, and he made his way to third on a couple of wild pitches, but the Rockies couldn’t bring him home. Arenado popped up a hittable pitch to end the inning.

The Rockies were quiet in the eleventh, but the Phillies were not. Michael Saunders doubled with one out against Scott Oberg, and Tommy Joseph followed that up with a single to score Saunders and hand the Rockies a loss.

The road trip might have ended with a loss, but there’s no way to spin the trip as anything other than a success. The Rockies went 7-3 and will return to Denver with a 31-18 record. The Rockies open up a three-game set against the St. Louis Cardinals in Denver tomorrow. Antonio Senzatela will face Carlos Martinez. The game will begin at 6:40 MT.