Rockies 6, Tigers 2: Chuck and Grich keep it Kuhl in the Motor City

The Colorado Rockies played strong on both sides of the ball to lift themselves over the Detroit Tigers 6-2 for the game three win. The Rockies are now 10-5 on the season and a delightful 4-1 on the road with two road series wins under their belts. The Rockies didn’t win their fourth road game until May 30th in 2021, and didn’t win their second road series until the end of August.

Kuhl (one) Runnings

Rockies starting pitcher Chad Kuhl is credited with the win today’s victory. His third start of the season, Kuhl earned his second quality start by giving up just one run through six innings. He gave up four hits while walking two and striking out six. Kuhl seemed to be running out of gas in the sixth, finding himself in trouble after a leadoff single and a walk. He stayed Kuhl under pressure—especially while getting squeezed by the home plate umpire—to get the next three outs. Of particular note was the second out of the inning, where a shallow pop up dropped due to miscommunication and could have caused some real damage. Chad Kuhl manned third and stretched for an excellent heads-up throw by José Iglesias for the force out at third. Kuhl’s slider looked fantastic today and he did an excellent job at getting opposing players to bite for a swing and miss.

Chuck is feeling frisky and Grich gets every stitch

Charlie Blackmon put together one of his best games of the season so far against the Motor City Kitties. Going 4-for-5, Chuck Nazty scored two runs and had two RBIs without striking out. Blackmon raised his batting average for the season a good sixty points to .286 after entering the game at .227. He even cleanly stole a base as a feather in his cap. Connor Joe extended his hitting streak to 11 games, and Randal Grichuk extended his to 10. Grichuk continues to put in work while wearing purple. Today he went 3-for-4 and was just a triple shy of hitting for the cycle. His home run in the third against Tigers starter Tyler Alexander got out in a hurry for his first big fly in a Rockies uniform.

Bullpen continues to rebound

After the Rockies bullpen struggled in game one of the series and nearly coughed up the lead at the end of game two, the bullpen was strong this afternoon. Justin Lawrence relieved Chad Kuhl for the seventh inning. He did give up two hits and a walk and one earned run, but kept the damage to a minimum after getting himself into a jam. It was a rougher outing for him but he’s still having a strong start to the season. Tyler Kinley kept his ERA at a clean 0.00 with a scoreless eighth inning, giving up one hit and striking out one. Carlos Estévez finished out the game with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.

Coming up next

The Rockies will continue their road trip tomorrow by heading to the City of Brotherly Love to take on the Philadelphia Phillies. It will be a battle of the Kyles as lefty Kyle Freeland takes on righty Kyle Gibson. First pitch is at 4:45 PM MDT.