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Editor’s note: Purple Row’s core principle is to create a welcoming space for Rockies fans to read what they can’t read anywhere else, write for a built-in audience of fellow Rockies fans, and discuss all things Rockies baseball with everyone else who comes through. That’s why we’re called a community. To that end, this year we’re going to focus our postgame coverage on the conversational component of that principle. Purple Row’s talented stable of writers will still offer more involved posts from the more memorable and frustrating games this season, but instead of the game stories we’ve done in the past, we’re going to have shorter, and we hope more fun, postgame articles. They’ll include short snippets about the emotions the games elicited, the heroes that emerged in key moments, and the goats that faltered in the same.
We hope you like them, and we hope they’ll start a conversation.
★ ★ ★
Charlie Blackmon hit a pair of solo home runs to back up a strong outing from Germán Márquez and the Rockies bullpen in a 2-1 Rockies win. Blackmon went deep against Zack Greinke in the sixth and Fernando Salas in the eighth and the Rockies bullpen made them stand up after Márquez allowed one unearned run in five innings. Wade Davis also earned his first save as a Rockie.
Today’s hero
While Márquez had a strong outing, allowing just four hits and one unearned run in five innings, the hero of the day was definitely Blackmon. His two home runs made him good for .340 WPA and gave him three home runs in two days, well on his way to repeating the production that saw him finish fifth in NL MVP voting in 2017.
Entertainment index
If you’re into baseball for the 11-9 slugfests, this was not the game for you, but if you like pitcher’s duels, tonight was a pretty good one between Márquez and Greinke. Each starter allowed just one run and they combined to strike out 13. The Rockies also got four lights-out innings from their bullpen, with Chris Rusin, Bryan Shaw, Jake McGee and Wade Davis combining to allow just a hit and a walk in four innings with four strikeouts.
Look ahead
The Rockies salvaged a game in Arizona and will have a rare Sunday off for Easter tomorrow before starting a four-game series with San Diego on Monday. But for now, there is a win on the board and it will be a happy flight to California.