Aroldis Chapman had not blown a save in 29 straight chances. Boston had not lost a game all season when leading after the eighth inning – 30-0 in those games coming into Monday night. Both of those streaks ended in the span of about five minutes at Coors Field, undone by a barrage that, per Elias, no team had managed in more than sixty years: eight consecutive hits to end the ballgame. The last of them was a Jake McCarthy triple down the left-field line that scored three and gave the Rockies an improbable 3-2 walk-off win over the Red Sox.
The Rockies entered the ninth without a run, having been thoroughly handled by Boston rookie Jake Bennett, who struck out nine over six innings and became the fourth-ever visiting rookie to throw six scoreless with nine-plus strikeouts and no walks at Coors Field.
Colorado had stranded a rally in the eighth – getting four straight hits but running themselves out of the inning twice on the bases – and looked headed for a quiet loss. Then the ninth happened.
TJ Rumfield singled. Hunter Goodman singled. Cole Carrigg dropped a bunt single down the third base line to load the bases. And McCarthy, down 0-2 against a pitcher throwing 100+, fought off everything until he got something he could put into play.
“I’m just trying to hit it, and I’m late because it’s 100, and I shot it down the line,” McCarthy said. “Nothing was calculated there. When a guy’s that good, you’re just trying to do what you can.”
The ball stayed fair. Three runs scored. The Rockies poured out of the dugout.
It was McCarthy’s first career walk-off hit, his fourth triple of the year, and it extended his career-high hitting streak to 11 games.
“That was surreal,” he said. “It still really hasn’t sunk in.”
McCarthy was quick to deflect the credit toward the at-bats that set him up – particularly the two rookies, Rumfield and Carrigg, who kept the inning alive.
“Five straight line drives off a good pitcher,” he said, “and then Rumfield staying on a slider, Goody, Carrigg getting the bunt down. Those are really poised at-bats. If they roll over and die, I don’t even get anything.”
Warren Schaeffer saw the same thing.
“Eight straight hits to end the ballgame against two world-class pitchers in Whitlock and Chapman,” he said. “They don’t quit. We’ve been saying it all year – we fight till the end, and tonight we got rewarded for it.”
Lost in the dramatics was a strong start from Ryan Feltner. He wasn’t sharp early but settled in, working six innings and allowing just two runs on a Willson Contreras double and a Caleb Durbin single in the sixth. He walked four – a number that’s crept up in recent starts – but stranded trouble and kept Colorado in a game its offense couldn’t yet support.
“I was going out there a little flat the first couple of innings,” Feltner said, “but I just flipped a switch mentally and got more aggressive”
Schaeffer was effusive: “He could have completely shut down, or he could keep going and fight through it for his team and save the bullpen. He did more than that. He was outstanding.”
Victor Vodnik worked two scoreless innings of relief to pick up the win.
There was a homecoming, too. Mickey Moniak, reinstated from the injured list before the game after a month out with right-ankle tendonitis, delivered a pinch-hit single in the eighth – his first action since May 21.
“I’m just excited to play baseball again,” Moniak said pregame.
He spent his rehab in Albuquerque testing his ankle in the outfield and getting his timing back.
“It’s just about 100 percent,” Moniak said of his ankle. “I feel confident to go out there and play.”
The win was Colorado’s third walk-off of the season and continued a recent stretch of tight, late-game victories that Schaeffer sees as evidence of something larger taking root.
“Learning how to win,” he called it. “Those battles and fights at the end of the game have lately been turning into victories. That’s a big step forward for us.”
The Rockies improved to 31-38, still a long way from where they want to be, but playing the kind of baseball that doesn’t end until the very last out.
“We have young guys still learning how to win,” McCarthy said. “I’m just super happy to be here. This is so fun to be a part of.”
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