At .224 through the first month of the season, the Colorado Rockies have the worst batting average in all of Major League Baseball. Still, they found a way to knock out three home runs Tuesday night and defeat the Cubs in Chicago 3-1.
Charlie Blackmon led off the game with a homer, and then David Dahl followed it up with a bomb of his own. Through one inning, the Rockies actually had a lead, one they held onto the entire game, to steal a win on the road.
Of course, the Cubs would not be denied their ‘friendly confine’ advantage as Anthony Rizzo took Jon Gray’s first pitch of the game yard, bringing the contest to 2-1 as the Rockies continued to nurse their one-run lead.
That was Gray’s worst pitch of the game, but he threw a gem on the road as he only gave up a mere two hits in six innings with six strikeouts. The Rockies’ starter seemed to settle in as the game went on as well as he struck out the side in the fifth inning before picking up his fourth ‘K’ in the sixth inning.
While Gray was rock-solid all night long, it was the best third baseman in all of baseball — Nolan Arenado — who homered in the fourth inning to push Colorado’s lead to 3-1 over the Cubs. It was a good thing he smashed that one deep too because the rest of the lineup was horrific once again. Through seven innings, the Rockies offense was 1-21 outside of those home runs by the Blackmon, Arenado, and Dahl.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, it was Gray’s second-worst pitch — a belt-high fastball — that Kyle Schwarber took to the right-field corner and earned himself a triple. But Gray followed that pitch with a huge strikeout and forced a pop out to keep the two-run lead into the eighth inning.
That’s when Adam Ottavino came in and sat down all three batters he faced. Wade Davis followed him and saved the road win for the Rockies.
On the whole, Colorado’s offense is still sputtering. They went a terrible 4-30 in the game, a combined .133 batting average, and if three of those hits were not home runs, the Rockies would have lost a fourth-straight road game.
Instead, Gray gets the win in one of his best performances of the season in which he went seven strong innings as he gave up just three hits, one earned run, and struck out six batters over 96 total pitches.
The Rockies pull back ahead of .500 in the first game of the new month of May and are now at 16-15 overall. Tomorrow, they’ll take on Chicago in the series-defining game. First pitch is at 12:20 p.m. MT.
