Eli Whitney | July 2, 2026
The wins had stopped coming for Kyle Freeland, and the Rockies couldn’t solve the Marlins. On Wednesday night at Coors Field, both droughts ended at once. Freeland turned in five sharp innings, Mickey Moniak fell a single shy of the cycle, and Colorado rode three home runs to a 6-3 win that snapped a three-game skid and, more strikingly, an eight-game losing streak to Miami that was the longest against the Marlins in franchise history.
Freeland earned his first victory since April 7, ending an 11-game personal winless stretch, his longest run since 2024-2025. He scattered six hits over five innings, struck out seven, and worked around the only real trouble he faced – back-to-back hits in the fourth that led to a Javier Sanoja two-run triple.
“I missed a couple of locations with those back-to-back hits, but I stuck to our game plan and our strengths,” Freeland said. “I knew we had confidence in our pitches and we were going to get out of it without it snowballing on us.
He pointed to his off-speed stuff, particularly a curveball that generated whiffs all night.
“Curveball was working well tonight. I had good fastball command and good cutter command.”
Moniak set the tone in the first, driving a 96 MPH fastball from Max Meyer 434 feet to center for a homer, and added a double and a two-run triple to finish 3-for-4 with three RBI. It was the second time this season he came up a single short of the cycle, but he wasn’t lamenting the near miss.
“I’ll take three hits with a double, triple, and homer any day of the week,” Moniak said. “Hitting for the cycle is something cool, something historic, but if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be.”
His bigger takeaway from the recent results was the quality of his at-bats coming off the injured list.
“The biggest takeaway was just my takes, working good at-bats, feeling like I was in control in the box.”
The Rockies broke through against Meyer – a pitcher who had entered 9-0 – with a four-run fifth. Moniak’s two-run triple gave Colorado a 3-2 lead, and Hunter Goodman followed it up with a two-run homer to left-center, his 27th of the season. That blast pushed Goodman into rare air: he became just the second Rockie ever to reach 27 home runs before the All-Star break, joining Larry Walker. Goodman thought he’d gotten under it off the bat.
“I kind of clipped it. I thought I hit it too high, but I guess I got enough of it,” he said.
Kyle Karros built off a strong month of June with a solo homer in the seventh, his sixth of the year; over his last 17 games, he’s slashing .391/.462/.739. The bullpen made the lead stand up, with Juan Mejia, Jimmy Herget, and Brennan Bernardino combining for four innings of one-run relief, Bernardino closing it out for his first save. Manager Warren Schaeffer singled out the group afterward.
“It was awesome to see Juan get back on track, and Jimmy was good as always, one-two-three, and then Bernie shut it down. Good to see from those guys.”
The only Miami highlight of note was a strange one: Joe Mack’s pinch-hit inside-the-park home run in the seventh, the first pinch-hit inside-the-parker in the majors in over two years. It cut the lead to 5-3, but no closer. Colorado, which struck out 11 Marlins, improved to 34-53 and can split the four-game series with a win Thursday.
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