Rockies take another series from one of MLB’s best teams

DENVER — Another league-pace setter into Coors Field, and another series win for the Colorado Rockies.

Three days after dispatching the NL-leading Philadelphia Phillies over Memorial Day weekend by taking two out of three games, the Rockies completed a series win over the AL-pacing Cleveland Guardians, riding a 6-run second inning and starter Ty Blach’s 7 innings of work to a 7-4 win at Coors Field on Wednesday night.

Blach delivered the fourth quality start in 6 games during the Rockies’ homestand, allowing 6 hits, 2 walks and 2 earned runs over 7 innings of work. But after the first inning, it didn’t look like Blach would last that long, as he allowed 3 hits and a pair of walks in the frame. Cleveland scored both of its runs in the top of the first, and only a bases-loaded, 4-pitch strikeout of Guardians catcher Austin Hedges to end the frame kept the damage from being worse.

“He couldn’t get the changeup into play … They took advantage of some balls that were up,” manager Bud Black said.

But after that, Blach cruised. He labored to 31 pitches in the top of the first, then mowed down the Guardians from there, needing just 35 pitches to make it through the next 4 innings.

During his final 6 innings of work, Blach allowed just three hits. He recorded 6 1-pitch outs, including two in the bottom of the fourth, which was one of three frames in which Blach needed fewer than 10 pitches to retire the side.

“It just flipped for him, and that can happen over the course of the game where you don’t have it, and then all of a sudden, you find it,” Black said.

TY and the TY stand for thank you for 7 strong innings 💪 pic.twitter.com/Q23QMNccQV

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) May 30, 2024

It was Blach’s second-straight quality start and the 14th for the Rockies this month. He opened the homestand by going 6 2/3 innings last Friday against Philadelphia, keeping the Rockies in striking range until Jacob Stallings tied it with a pinch-hit home run in the ninth, setting up an 11-inning win.

Meanwhile, Colorado’s bats exploded in the second inning at the expense of Guardians starter Logan Allen. The first three Rockies reached base, punctuated by Jacob Stallings’ RBI double to right that scored Elehuris Montero from second base. Two more runs came home on a Sean Bouchard sacrifice fly to center field and a Hunter Goodman RBI single to right field.

Two batters later, Brendan Rodgers dropped an 85-MPH cutter from Allen over the left-field wall, scoring Goodman from second base and giving the Rockies a 6-2 lead. Allen hit Ryan McMahon with his next pitch, then surrendered a 1-1 double to Elias Díaz — working as a designated hitter — for what proved to be the Rockies’ final run of the night.

The game remained 7-2 until reliever Tyler Kinley ran into trouble in the top of the ninth, allowing 2 hits, a walk and a strikeout-erasing wild pitch that allowed Johnathan Rodriguez to reach first base. That yielded a pair of Cleveland runs, pulling the Guardians within 7-4. But he struck out Guardians second baseman Andrés Giménez with two on to end the threat, sending the Rockies on the road with another series win.

A stern test of the Rockies’ recent surge will come this weekend when they travel to Los Angeles for three games at Dodger Stadium, beginning Friday night.

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