The Colorado Rockies obliterated the Miami Marlins 11-3 Friday night at Coors Field. The win was the fourth in a row for the Rockies as they bumped their record back up to .500 at 38-38.
Jon Gray sliced through the Marlins hitters in his start, dominating with a line of seven innings pitched, allowing one run on eight hits while striking out 12. It was the best and most complete start for Gray this season.
The Rockies backed Gray early by establishing a lead in the second inning. Ian Desmond started the inning with a single and was then pushed home via an RBI double hit by Tom Murphy to left field to give Colorado an early advantage.
Gray did allow a run to score in the following inning but limited the damage to a solo home run hit by Dereck Dietrich.
The Rockies blew the game wide open in the fourth inning by scoring six runs on five hits. Desmond started the inning with another single and then scored on a double from Carlos Gonzalez and a throwing error committed by Miami.
From there, Gray hit a sacrifice fielder’s choice to score Gonzalez and extend the Rockies lead to 3-1. Colorado scored another two runs off of back-to-back RBI singles from DJ LeMahieu and Charlie Blackmon. Nolan Arenado then proceeded to put a cap on the inning by blasting a two-run home run to left field to push the Rockies ahead 7-1 after four innings of play.
The game remained quiet until the seventh inning where the Rockies scored two runs when Gerardo Parra hit a double to deep right field to put Colorado in the double-digits for runs scored in the game.
The Marlins scored a pair of runs in the eighth inning off of pitcher Yency Alomante who was making his second career appearance at the big league level. Other than that, the Rockies bullpen managed to lock things down and solidify the victory for the rox who are now 4-1 on their current seven-game homestand.
The Rockies and Marlins will continue their series tomorrow at Coors Field with first pitch set for 1:10 MST.
