The Rockies’ rally thing has become a thing.
Showing scant signs of life at the plate and trailing Arizona 4-1, the Rockies scored four runs in the seventh inning to eek out a 6-5 victory on Sunday afternoon at Coors Field.
The game ended with an NFL-style sloberknocker collision.
With men on second and third and two outs in the ninth, Rockies reliever Juan Mejia faced the dangerous Ketel Marte, who entered Sunday hitting .435 with nine doubles and two home runs in his last 12 games vs. Colorado. Mejia jammed Marte with a fastball, inducing a weak infield pop-up.
For a split second, it looked like the ball might drop, until Mejia made a running, over-the-shoulder catch before colliding with first baseman/strong safety Warming Bernabel. Mejiah held on, Bernabel’s glove popped off, and there were smiles all around when Mejiah got up off the ground, uninjured.
“My mindset was, ‘Just go make the play,” Bernabel said through a translator. “And then when I realized they wanted me to jump toward the ball, and that’s when I realized, ‘Oh, this is going to be interesting.’ ”
Manager Warren Schaeffer said, “I’ve never seen anything like that. Juan didn’t want that ball to drop. You just love to see the want-to there, to get the game done. There was probably a lack of communication there, if I’m being honest. But you have to be really athletic to (make that play), and that was cool.”
The bang-bang ending gave Colorado (35-89) its third straight win and clinched the four-game series with the Diamondbacks. It was Colorado’s fifth win in its last six games, coming on the heels of its fifth eight-game losing streak of the season.
The Rockies’ four-run rally wasn’t showy, but it was scrappy. Bernabel led off with a single to left field off reliever Jake Woodford and then Woodford jammed the bases by plunking Braxton Fulford and pinch-hitter Hunter Goodman on back-to-back at-bats.
Rookie second baseman Ryan Ritter made Woodford pay, punching a two-run single through the right side, cutting Arizona’s lead to 4-3. Designated hitter Mickey Moniak, Colorado’s best hitter with runners in scoring position (.333 average), drove a two-out, two-run single to center to give the Rockies a 5-4 lead.
The Rockies scored a bonus run in the eighth on a single by Bernabel and an RBI double by Fulford.
Colorado needed the run because the D-backs scored a run in the ninth off Mejia before he made his game-saving catch and escaped with his first save of the season.
“I’m just so proud of the guys,” Schaeffer said. “All the things we’ve gone through this year, in terms of all of the losses that we’ve had, to just keep going and play with all of the emotion and energy. They never quit. That’s them, that’s just who they are.
” This is such a fun team to manage. It’s a blast, because they always think they can come back. What more can you ask for?”
A strong performance by Antonio Senzatela, for one thing. And the Rockies got that, too.
The veteran right-hander’s comeback start was a success. He pitched five efficient, scoreless innings. Senzatela had to deal with some traffic, particularly in the first inning, but he handled it with aplomb.
Senzatela gave up four hits — two in the first inning — walked one and struck out two. He threw 61 pitches, 42 for strikes.
“We worked on things today and I felt very strong, very comfortable,” Senzatela said.
Senzatela made his first start since Aug. 1, when the Pirates clobbered him for seven runs on eight hits in two-thirds of an inning. The club quickly placed him on the injured list with a finger blister that had severely hampered his ability to grip the ball in the game against the Pirates — a game Colorado ended up winning, 17-16.
Senzatela was sent down to the Rockies’ training facility at Salt River Fields at Scottsdale, Ariz., for a wellness check. In the pitching lab, the club figured some things out.
“We found my old fastball,” said Senzatela, who recorded his first scoreless start of at least five innings for the first time since Aug. 29, 2021, vs. the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
“My fastball this season was more like a sinker,” he explained. “Usually, my fastball is cutting, so we reworked the fastball. It worked well today.”
Arizona right-hander Nabil Crismatt, called up from Triple-A Reno for Sunday’s start, flummoxed Rockies hitters with his 82 mph changeup, generating nine whiffs on 15 swings. He struck out five, walked one, and allowed just three singles.
Colorado nicked Crismatt for a run in the fifth, combining Brenton Doyle’s leadoff walk and stolen base with Orlando Arcia’s RBI single to right.
Monday’s pitching matchup
Dodgers RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (10-8, 2.84 ERA) at Rockies LHP Kyle Freeland (3-12, 5.18)
6:40 p.m. Monday, Coors Field
TV: Rockies.TV (streaming); Comcast/Xfinity (channel 1262); DirecTV (683); Spectrum (130, 445, 305, 435 or 445, depending on region).
Radio: 850 AM, 94.1 FM
Trending: Colorado’s 6-5 victory over Arizona on Sunday was its fifth win in its last six games. During those six games, the Rockies have posted a 4.50 ERA. Not spectacular, but much better than the 10.63 ERA Rockies pitchers put up through the first 10 games in August.
Pitching probables
Tuesday: Dodgers RHP Emmet Sheehan (3-2, 3.86) at Rockies LHP Austin Gomber (0-6, 6.75), 6:40 p.m.
Wednesday: Dodgers RHP Shohei Ohtani (0-0, 3.47) at Rockies RHP Tanner Gordon (3-5, 7.89), 6:40 p.m.
Thursday: Dodgers LHP Clayton Kershaw (7-2, 3.01) at Rockies RHP Chase Dollander (2-9, 6.43), 1:10 p.m.
— Patrick Saunders, The Denver Post
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