Rockies 3, Braves 2: Colorado takes the rainy win in extras

In rainy Atlanta, the Rockies and Braves battled it out over the late night for over four hours in wet and muddy conditions. Nine innings weren’t enough so they kept going. In the end, the Rockies pulled out the win with a Raimel Tapia RBI single in the tenth.

The win gives the Rockies their second consecutive series win on the road and improves them to 23-51 away from Coors, 68-78 overall including 8 wins in extras. They’ve now won three games in a row and are 8-6 in September. Here’s how it went down...

Rockies score twice in the fifth but leave them loaded

For the first four innings, Colorado’s offense was not able to make any noise against Huascar Ynoa. The Rockies had wasted two leadoff hits in the second and fourth but they wouldn’t waste the one in the fifth. Sam Hilliard got it going by hitting an opposite field single through a shifted infield, then Colton Welker joined in on the fun with his opposite field single to put runners on first and second with no outs. Dom Nuñez would fly out far enough to center field to move Hilliard over to third so it would be the pitcher Antonio Senzatela who’d be forced to put on a successful squeeze play. The run would score to tie the game and Senzatela would reach first base safely but it wasn’t quite how most would have envisioned.

With runners on the corners, Garrett Hampson battled back from being down 0-2 in the count to earn a walk and load the bases for Brendan Rodgers with only one out. Unfortunately, Rodgers would go down on strikes for the second out so it was left to Charlie Blackmon to make something happen with the bases loaded. That he would, but once again not the kind of thundering highlight play we might expect.

A run is still a run and it gave the Rockies a 2-1 lead in the fifth inning but it would leave a lot to be desired since the next batter Trevor Story would go down swinging and strand the bases loaded.

Eddie Rosario ties it up

The lead would not last long, Atlanta’s first batter in the next half inning, Eddie Rosario, would knock in the Braves second run with a moon shot to the right field bleachers off of Antonio Senzatela. It was just Rosario’s fourth home run in just under 40 at-bats with the Braves. He was traded earlier this season from Cleveland where he had mashed seven in just under 280 at-bats.

Senzatela with another fantastic outing

For the seventh consecutive start, Antonio Senzatela recorded a quality start. The 26-year-old had another sensational outing, going seven innings and allowing just two runs while striking out seven with zero walks. The fifth time this season that Senzatela has had a start with zero walks.

He now holds a 3.08 ERA since returning from the COVID list in early August.

Rockies win it in extras!

Ultimately, nine innings in the rain were not enough to decide this one. It took one extra frame and one RBI single from Raimel Tapia to drive in the automatic runner as the winning run. Tapia will make the highlight reel, but some credit deserves to go to the previous batter Dom Nuñez who found a way to move the runner to third.

Robert Stephenson pitched in the bottom half of the inning and despite some drama with a one out walk, was able to close out the game and save the Rockies from what would have been a grueling and demoralizing loss and instead will be an energizing win for tomorrow’s early day game.

Up next

The Rockies and Braves finish up their three game series tomorrow. The rain may continue but for now it’s scheduled to be Germán Márquez (12-10, 3.93 ERA) going up against Ian Anderson (7-5, 3.61 ERA). It’s an early east coast game with first pitch set for 10:20 AM MDT.