Eli Whitney | July 2, 2026
For weeks, the Rockies hadn’t won a game by more than three runs – a long run of nailbiters, walk-offs, and blown leads. Every night, a coin flip. On Thursday afternoon at Coors Field, they finally stopped sweating. Colorado hung a seven-run sixth inning on Miami, rode a 14-hit barrage to a 14-4 win, and split the four-game series. The 10-run margin was the club’s largest victory at Coors Field in nearly a year, a rare afternoon when the Rockies buried an opponent instead of outlasting one.
The offense did its damage from the top down. Jake McCarthy drove in four, Mickey Moniak homered for the third straight game, and TJ Rumfield, Troy Johnston and the rest of the order kept the line moving. The dam broke in the sixth, when the Rockies sent 11 men to the plate and strung together six singles around a hit-by-pitch and a walk.
“Just good at-bats,” McCarthy said. “It’s contagious when one guy does it. A couple of balls fall, a couple get driven, and it’s nice going into those late innings to give our relievers a nice cushion.
McCarthy’s biggest swing came earlier, a two-run homer in the fourth off left-hander John King that gave Colorado a 5-4 lead it never surrendered. It was his first home run off a lefty since 2023, and it came after he’d seen a steady diet of breaking balls.
“The Marlins are throwing a lot of sweepers and sliders, so I’m not necessarily sitting on it, but maybe anticipating it,” McCarthy said. “Just trying to get something over the middle, put a good swing on it and backspun it to right.”
Manager Warren Schaeffer was struck by how much of the day’s production came in tough left-on-left spots.
“That was ultra impressive – Mick, Rum Troy, Jake, the homer left on left,” Schaeffer said. “That’s big-time for those guys.”
Moniak stayed scorching, going 3-for-5 with a double and a first-inning homer, his 15th of the year. It made him the first Rockie to homer in the first inning of three consecutive games – and, a day after falling a single short of the cycle, he came up a triple short of it this time. He didn’t seem to mind.
His bigger point was about the plate discipline that’s fueled the hot stretch since his return from an ankle injury: in all three hits Thursday, he had gotten ahead in the count.
“If I’m comfortable in the box, plate discipline comes with it,” he said. “When I’m uncomfortable, I tend to speed myself up and try to do too much.”
Michael Lorenzen had a scuffling afternoon on the mound, matching a career high with six walks over 4.1 innings, but the bullpen bailed him out with a clean finish. Brennan Bernardino, Victor Vodnik, and Zach Agnos combined for 4.2 scoreless innings, Bernardino picking up the win. Schaeffer praised the group’s steadiness, particularly his lone left.
“Bernie’s been extremely consistent. You always want to give him the ball,” Schaeffer said. “He throws strikes consistently, and that’s of huge importance to a manager.”
There was also plenty to like in the smaller moments. Cole Carrigg drove in a pair on sacrifice flies and dropped a bunt single, the kind of unselfish at-bats Schaeffer keeps highlighting.
“I can’t say enough about what he’s doing because what he’s doing is not easy,” the manager said. “It takes a certain level of confidence to be able to do that.”
Rumfield, meanwhile, inched closer to history – his two hits left him one shy of Troy Tulowitzki’s 2007 club record for hits by a Rockies rookie before the All-Star break.
The win pushed Colorado to 35-53 and secured the series split – a small but real marker for a young club that keeps insisting its best baseball is ahead of it.
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