The Rockies had Sandy Alcantara on the ropes. They chased him with five runs and a barrage of doubles, built a 5-2 lead by the third inning, and looked poised to hand Miami a rare June loss. Then the middle innings arrived, the Marlins’ bats woke up, and a 5-2 cushion turned into a 10-7 defeat on Monday at Coors Field – Colorado’s seventh straight loss to Miami and the latest entry in a remarkable run of nail-biters.
The turning point came in the fifth. Sean Sullivan, who had labored through traffic all afternoon, gave up a leadoff solo homer to Otto Lopez to make it 5-3, then loaded the situation enough that Victor Vodnik was summoned with two on. Griffin Conine, pinch-hitting, turned on a hanging changeup and drove it out to right for a three-run homer – his first career pinch-hit home run and the swing that put Miami ahead 6-5 for good.
“He just gave up the homer there when he came in,” Warren Schaeffer said of Vodnik. “I think he hung a changeup. It was pretty much just one pitch.”
The Marlins blew it open in the seventh.
With Antonio Senzatela on in relief, Javier Sanoja cleared the bases with a triple to right and later scored, capping a four-run inning that pushed the lead to 10-5. Sanoja finished a home run shy of the cycle with three RBI.
“Senza was one pitch away from putting up a zero there,” Schaeffer said. “He got a heater up and over, and they put up three runs. No wavering confidence in Antonio Senzatela at all. Zero.”
Sullivan, making his fourth career start, struck out a career-high five but couldn’t stay ahead in the count, a recurring theme in his young big-league tenure.
“The biggest thing for me so far is getting behind on hitters and throwing fastballs in hitters’ counts,” Sullivan said. “That’s when I’ve been getting hurt.”
He leaned on his changeup to survive into the fifth.
“I felt like I was controlling it pretty well, put it where I wanted in any count,” he said. “I had a lot of confidence in it tonight.”
Schaeffer saw a pitcher battling without his best command.
“He got behind some, and when he got behind, he got hurt, but he battled,” the manager said. “He gave us a chance to win.”
The night’s brightest moment belonged to Hunter Goodman, who doubled and launched his 26th home run of the season, a solo shot to left-center in the seventh. The blast moved him into rare franchise company: he became just the third Rockie to hit at least 26 home runs before the All-Star break, joining Larry Walker and Todd Helton, and the second to homer 13 times in a calendar month, after Troy Tulowitzki.
“Two sliders early in the count, and I just told myself to be on the heater,” Goodman said. “Got a good heater to hit.”
Asked about seeing his name beside the franchise greats whose numbers hang in right-center, Goodman didn’t hide his appreciation.
“Anytime you’re mentioned with that caliber of player, it’s pretty cool.”
There were other bright spots in the box score. Jake McCarthy doubled twice and drove in two. Kyle Karros added two hits and two RBI, part of a month in which his OPS is hovering near 1.000. TJ Rumfield extended his career-high hitting streak to 12 games. But the through-line of this stretch is how little margin separates the Rockies from each of their opponents: each of their last 13 games since June 15 has been decided by three runs or fewer, the longest such streak by any team in the majors this season and the second-longest in franchise history. On Monday, the margin tilted the wrong way.
The Rockies fell to 11-14 in June. The Marlins improved to an MLB-best 19-6 on the month.
“They swept us at the beginning of the year, which we don’t like,” Schaeffer had said before the game, “but they’re a good team – they play hard every night, they play with passion. They’re a team to be reckoned with.”
On Monday, Miami proved his scouting report right.
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