The Rockies beat the Diamondbacks 5-2 at Coors Field today.
Tyler Chatwood had an excellent start. He gave up one run in seven-plus innings and only allowed two hits. He struck out five batters and walked three. Like Tyler Anderson yesterday, the Diamondbacks couldn’t square Chatwood up.
The Rockies got on the board in the second inning when Mark Reynolds hit his eleventh home run of the season in the second inning. The Rockies added more in the sixth inning after a sequence that was as lucky as it was entertaining.
First, Reynolds, who might have spent the offseason learning some sort of black magic, reached on an error. It was a lightly hit grounder that ate up second baseman Chris Owings. Trevor Story then hit a fly ball to right field. David Peralta, with his sunglasses on his hat, fell over on first move. He couldn’t find the ball upon getting to his feet, and the ball landed a foot to his right. Reynolds came all the way around from first to score. He just beat the throw with a nifty slide home. It looked like this:
Exactly how we drew it up. pic.twitter.com/kqsCSNCy0T
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) May 7, 2017
The next batter, Pat Valaika, brought story home with a home run to left field. That gave the Rockies a 4-0 lead. In the seventh, Charlie Blackmon hit a no-doubter to right field to make it a 5-0 game after seven.
The Diamondbacks cut the Rockies lead to three in the eighth. Chatwood came out for the inning, but he only lasted one batter. Daniel Descalso led off and hit a bouncer back to the mound. Chatwood attempted to grab it with his right hand, but he couldn’t get it and it fell away for an infield hit. Bud Black removed Chatwood after that, though it was due to his pitch count, which was at 95, and not injury. Adam Ottavino came in to pitch the eighth and walked the first batter he faced to put two on with nobody out. Nick Ahmed singled to right field to put the Diamondbacks on the board. Brandon Drury then grounded into a double play, which scored another run to make it 5-2. Mike Dunn relieved Ottavino and got AJ Pollock to ground out to end the inning.
While the Diamondbacks put up a couple of runs, a storm rolled into Denver. Rain and wind and lightning and thunder and more rain caused the umpiring crew to call for the tarp; the weather delayed the game for over an hour.
Greg Holland entered the game in the ninth after the delay. He pitched a scoreless inning to procure the Rockies win and his thirteenth save of the season.
After taking two out of three against Arizona, the Rockies are 20-12 and are 2.5 games ahead of the Diamondbacks and Dodgers in the NL West. Tomorrow, the defending World Series champion Chicago Cubs come to town for a three game series, the first of which begins 6:40 MT tomorrow. Antonio Senzatela will face Jake Arrieta.