Rockies walk off to win, could sweep into first place
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Momentum is as good as your starting pitcher in the next game, or so goes the saying. If Jason Hammel pitches poorly for the Colorado Rockies tonight, no one will hype a carry-over effect of last night’s thriller.
But a thriller it was, in which the Rockies capped a 14th-inning comeback with the first walk-off grand slam in club history. Ryan Spilborghs hit it -- you can watch him racing around the bases here, ‘as if he were Usain Bolt,’ the Denver Post reported -- and the Rockies closed within three games of the Dodgers in the National League West.
The Rockies and Dodgers start a three-game series tonight at Coors Field. Clayton Kershaw, who is winless in four starts this month and has not completed five innings in three of them, gets the start for the Dodgers.
The Rockies fought the San Francisco Giants evenly through 13 innings last night, before the Giants scored three runs in the top of the 14th inning. Brandon Medders, the sixth San Francisco pitcher, took a 4-1 lead into the bottom of the 14th.
Dexter Fowler walked. Clint Barmes popped out.
Justin Miller relieved Medders. Chris Iannetta singled. Troy Tulowitzki walked, loading the bases.
The Rockies had no position players left, so pitcher Adam Eaton had to bat. Colorado Manager Jim Tracy ordered Eaton not to swing. Tracy feared a double play, and he wanted to make sure Spilborghs had a chance to bat with the bases loaded.
Eaton walked anyway, forcing home a run. Merkin Valdez relieved Miller, and Spilborghs followed with the slam heard ‘round the Rocky Mountains.
Tracy said the comeback at Coors was the latest and greatest testament to the Rockies’ refusal to quit, to their commitment to play hard until the last out.
‘You play 27 outs,’ Tracy told reporters after the game. ‘In tonight’s case, I can’t multiply that quickly. Fourteen innings times three is a lot of outs.’
--Bill Shaikin