Rockies score early and often, ride Kyle Freeland’s pitching to 9-6 win in Cincy

The Rockies on the road are a sweet treat.

For the Rockies, a trend continued Tuesday night in Cincinnati as they scored two runs in the first inning — Colorado leads the MLB with 56 first-inning runs — and then they padded the lead to 4-0 in the second. They continued to push that lead to as much as 9-1 before winning 9-6 over the Reds to improve to 20-13 on the road, the second-most wins away from home in the MLB.

Yes, the bats were on fire early, and so was Kyle Freeland, going 6.2 innings, giving up nine hits and three runs while striking out seven. Freeland is usually superb early, waining in the later innings, and tonight was much of the same from him. His first run — and first hit allowed — came in the fifth inning on a solo home run. He then cruised through the next two innings until late in the seventh, where he gave up two more runs to the Reds with two outs.

Freeland may have given up three scores in the end, but his 107-pitch outing was a complete gem.

While Cincinnati put one on the board in the fifth, the Rockies kept it rolling in the bottom of the sixth, putting two more runs on the board to push their lead to 6-1.

Carlos Gonzalez — who enjoyed an amazing game — knocked a deep bomb out the park in the seventh to push the score to 9-1, Rockies. He also threw Tucker Barnhart out at second when the runner got greedy, and CarGo recorded a superb sliding catch out to end the eighth, too.

Freeland’s night came to an end in the bottom of the seventh when he loaded the bases and then gave up a base hit to score two. When the bullpen came in, the wheels almost fell off, as Bryan Shaw allowed three runs in the ninth inning alone, bringing it to a much closer 9-6 finish. Luckily, Wade Davis came in to put out the final out of the inning for the victory.

The win ended a four-game losing streak for the Rockies, righting the ship on the first of a three-game road series.

The Rockies improve to 31-29, second place in the NL West, half a game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks. They take on the Reds again tomorrow at 5:10 p.m. MT before an extremely early 10:35 a.m. MT first pitch on Thursday to end the series.