The Colorado Rockies defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in convincing fashion Saturday night, 9-1. The Rockies are now 71-58 on the season.
The game was a pitchers’ duel early on, with Rockies’ starting pitcher German Marquez hurling seven shutout inning, recording nine strikeouts while allowing just three hits.
Looking for a spark in the bottom of the seventh inning, Rockies’ manager Bud Black opted to use veteran Matt Holliday as a pinch hitter. With two-outs, Holliday blasted a solo home run to left field to break a scoreless ball game, giving the Rockies a 1-0 lead. The home run was the first of the season for Holliday.
The Cardinals worked themselves into a first and third situation with no outs in the eighth inning. Adam Ottavino was able to strike out Jedd Gyrko for the first out of the inning. Ottavino then worked a walk to Matt Carpenter and threw a wild pitch on the final pitch of the at-bat that escaped catcher Tony Walters, allowing Harrison Bader to score from third base, tying the game at 1-1.
The Rockies quickly answered in the bottom of the eighth inning which started with a single hit by DJ LeMahieu. Carlos Gonzalez then ripped a double to left center field, scoring LeMahiue to reestablish the lead for Colorado. From there, the Rockies proceeded to take a commanding lead, starting when Nolan Arenado kept things flowing by hitting an RBI double down the third-base line, extending the Rockies lead to 3-1. David Dahl followed with a RBI single, making the score 4-1. Tony Wolters, Ian Desmond, and Charlie Blackmon then all followed with RBI doubles, adding to the Rockies’ lead to make the score 8-1. LeMahieu put the icing on the cake in the eighth inning by hitting an RBI single, putting the Rockies on top, 9-1.
The Rockies recorded a season-high eight runs on 10 hits in the eighth inning.
The Rockies and Cardinals will conclude their series Sunday afternoon at Coors Field with first pitch set for 1:10 MST.