The Rockies are trying to salvage their season, and they can do that by winning games. It helps to have the team chasing you lose as well. Both of those things happened today. The Rockies ended their four-game losing streak and pulled off a bottom of the ninth victory today. Meanwhile, the Brewers lost in the bottom of the ninth to the Reds in Cincinnati. The collective results have given the Rockies back a 1.5 game lead on the Brewers for the second Wild Card.
Chad Bettis didn’t get off to a great start today, and it didn’t appear to augur well for the Rockies. The Giants have hit the fewest home runs in all of baseball, and yet they pulled out to a 2-0 lead after solo home runs in the first and third innings off the bats of Denard Span and Joe Panik. The Rockies offense to that point looked as limp as ever. But in the bottom of the third, Charlie Blackmon homered to center field to cut the Giants’ lead in half.
.@Chuck_Nazty sent this one into the ️ pic.twitter.com/H2QjZM0X3R
— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) September 4, 2017
After that, things started to look a lot rosier for Bettis and the Rockies. The Giants went down quietly in the top of the fourth, and the Rockies put up two in the bottom half of the inning to take a 3-2 lead. That got started with a Carlos González double. After Ian Desmond struck out and Jonathan Lucroy grounded out, it looked like the Rockies were simply going to strand another runner. But Bettis helped himself with a single to drive in CarGo. Back-to-back singles from Blackmon and DJ LeMahieu eventually scored Bettis.
The Giants tied the game in the sixth. Span doubled and Panik singled to tie the game at three and drive Bettis from the game. Chris Rusin put out the fire, and it remained tied until the ninth inning.
Blackmon hit a bloop double to start off the ninth, and after LeMahieu grounded out the Giants intentionally walked Arenado to put two on. Gerardo Parra worked a walk after that to load the bases. Bruce Bochy put in right-handed reliever Cory Gearrin to face pinch-hitter Pat Valaika. Gearrin struck him out, which put the Rockies on the brink of leaving the bases loaded. But CarGo took four consecutive balls to give the Rockies an extra literal walk-off win.
While the Rockies are no longer positioned to have a winning home stand, they can help themselves by continuing to win. Tomorrow, Ty Blach will face Tyler Chatwood at 6:40 MT.