Rockies 7, Marlins 4: The force will be with you. Always.

It certainly looked like a galaxy far, far away at first pitch this evening, as Denver’s beautiful blue skies were choked out with dark smoke, and the setting sun burned a fierce orange through the haze. The air quality was worse than on Nar Shaddaa for Star Wars Night at Coors Field, but the Colorado Rockies came to play. They showed the Miami Marlins that there’s always a bigger fish, earning a series win on a 7-4 victory.

Qui-Gomber Jinn

The force was with Rockies starting pitcher Austin Gomber, who pitched like a jedi master tonight in an excellent rebound from his last outing. Gomber had full command of all his pitches, especially his changeup and curveball, and put them to excellent use. Gomber pitched six shutout innings with five hits allowed and no walks. Most impressively, he reached a career high in single game strikeouts by fanning nine Marlins batters. With his impressive night, Gomber lowered his ERA at Coors Field to an incredible 1.70 so far on the season.

Now witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station

Though not as impressive as last night’s first Death Star, the Rockies offense had another very strong showing at home against the Marlins with seven runs on 12 hits. Trevor “Solo” Story, Charlie “Chuckbacca” Blackmon, and CJ “The Crondalorian” Cron all had two hit, two run evenings. Story and Brendan “The Bantha” Rodgers both extended their hit streaks to 10 and 14 respectively. Connor “Obi Wan Ken-Joe-bi” Joe set a career mark for RBIs in a game with four on a 2-for-3 night at the plate after getting the start in left field.

Kinley risks TIE-ing it up

Tyler “TIE Fighter” Kinley’s up and down season continued tonight, with a difficult seventh inning in relief of Austin Gomber. Kinley has been difficult to get a read on this season, with it being left to the roll of a chance cube if he has a good outing or leads you into an asteroid field. Tonight Kinley only managed to complete ²⁄₃ of an inning, allowing the Marlins back into the game on four hits and four runs and raising his ERA on the season to 6.20.

Get him to the bacta tank

Rockies second baseman Brendan Rodgers has been absolutely on fire the last few months, earning his spot as an every day starter and enjoying a 14-game hit streak with a double tonight. Unfortunately he was injured dueling Marlins reliever Zach Pop in the mile high cloud city. Rodgers took a fastball directly off his hand during his at-bat and immediately dropped to the ground in pain. Trainers were unable to remove his batting glove comfortably to test his injury, and he immediately left the game. Thankfully he won’t need a mechanical hand, because the x-rays came back negative. Manager Bud Black says he has a bruise and will be fine.

Coming up next

Tomorrow marks the final installment of this trilogy, with hometown kid Kyle Freeland drinking a big glass of blue milk before facing off against a phantom menace in a yet to be announced Marlins starter. First pitch is at 1:10 PM MDT.