After a 1-5 start to this road trip through the Midwest, the Rockies were able to head home on a happy flight with a 5-4 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday afternoon. It is their second consecutive Sunday afternoon victory after beating the Oakland Athletics last Sunday 3-2. It certainly didn’t come easily, but they were able to pull it off in eleven innings.
The Gray Wolf works his magic
Jon Gray threw a gem today. He started with a rough few early innings, which included a solo home run to Travis Shaw in the second inning and a single to Ryan Braun, but finished strong. After the early inning traffic, he got Jonathan Schoop to ground into a double play and sent down seven straight. Gray struck out three straight in the eighth to end his gem of an outing, finishing with a line of eight innings, four hits, one earned run, two walks, and eight strikeouts on 99 pitches.
A Story-book series
Trevor Story continued his dominance over the Brewers, scoring four out of the five runs for the Rockies after scoring all four runs last night. The first three came off a three-run homer in the fifth inning to give the Rockies a 3-1 lead. His fourth came by outrunning a potential inning ending double play in the ninth to score DJ LeMahieu and tack on an insurance run going into the bottom of the inning, which the team ended up needing.
In this series, Story drove in nine of the 12 runs for the Rockies. Carlos González and Nolan Arenado accounted for the other three, with CarGo’s two-run homer on Friday and Nolan’s solo shot in this game (more about that below). He has seven home runs against the Brewers this season, four of which came in this series.
Ninth inning woes
The Rockies entered the ninth inning with Adam Ottavino on the mound and a comfy 4-1 lead over the Brewers, but that quickly dissolved after a strange series of events. First, Mike Moustakas hit a solo home run on the second pitch of his at bat to make it 4-2 Rockies. Two batters later, Ryan Braun reached on catcher’s interference with one out. Two batters after that, Erik Kratz struck out looking but a dropped third strike wild pitch allowed Kratz to reach first to put men on the corners with two outs. Orlando Arcia then doubled to score Braun and push Kratz to third to make it 4-3. Kratz then scored the tying run on the next at bat off of another wild pitch by Ottavino, who went on to strike out Hernan Pérez to end the inning but the damage was done.
Nolan the conquering hero
Nolan Arenado did Nolan Arenado things and lifted the Rockies to victory in the eleventh inning with a solo home run to left, his 29th of the year.
Oh, what a relief
Seunghwan Oh saved the game in the eleventh inning by inducing a 3-6-1 double play to end it. The play wasn’t without a little drama as the umpires reviewed it, but the runner was out and the play was overturned. If Oh hadn’t caught the ball, the game would’ve been tied again and would probably still be going since there were Schoop and Shaw were on first and second when Kratz hit the ball. It was Oh’s first save in a Rockies uniform and his third of the 2018 season.
Up Next
The Rockies return home tomorrow to host the Pittsburgh Pirates. Joe Musgrave takes the hill against Kyle Freeland with first pitch scheduled for 6:40 pm MDT.