Eli Whitney | June 20, 2026
Kyle Freeland recorded the 1,000th strikeout of his career in the top of the seventh inning Friday night, becoming just the second pitcher in Rockies history to reach that mark, joining Germán Márquez. It was the signature moment of an outing that had been building toward something for weeks. It was also, in the end, only the second-most important development of the evening. The first belonged to Braxton Fulford, who came off the bench in the eighth inning and delivered a two-run double that turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead, sending the Rockies to a 4-3 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Coors Field. Colorado improves to 29-47.
Freeland was, in every sense that matters, who the Rockies have needed him to be for the better part of two months, and finally got it on Friday. He worked 7.1 innings, allowed two runs, struck out a season-high eight without issuing a single walk. His fastball was consistent, and his off-speed pitches found the locations he wanted throughout the game. Warren Schaeffer didn’t hesitate when describing what he saw.
“His body language was aggressive,” Schaeffer said. “He attacked the strike zone relentlessly. He was in control all night. It felt like he could finish the game.”
Freeland had been trending in this direction, a fact that Schaeffer had volunteered earlier in the day, almost as if daring the moment to arrive. It arrived.
The Rockies had built their lead the patient way. Willi Castro doubled home Ezequiel Tovar in the third after Tovar reached on a bunt single. TJ Rumfield, who has been arguably the hottest hitter on the roster since June 10 – batting .361 with four home runs and nine RBI over his last nine games – followed in the fourth with a 427-foot solo home run to make it 2-0.
For seven innings, that was enough.
Then the eighth inning turned everything over. Freeland, still in the game to begin the frame, allowed back-to-back doubles, cutting the lead to 2-1. Jaden Hill came on in an attempt to clean things up and instead watched Pittsburgh manufacture two more runs – a single, a hit-by-pitch, and a triple from Nick Gonzales that pushed the Pirates ahead 3-2. It looked, for a moment, like the kind of late-inning unraveling that has defined too many Rockies losses this season. Schaeffer would say as much earlier in the day, almost presciently.
“As of late, there’s been too many walks down there,” he said of his bullpen, hours before the eighth inning bore similar concerns. “When you give games away like that, that’s not where you want to be.”
But this time the offense answered.
Tyler Freeman singled. Cole Carrigg singled. Fulford, pinch-hitting for Sterlin Thompson, stepped in against Mason Montgomery – a pitcher he knew intimately, having caught him for three years at Texas Tech.
“I do feel like I had the advantage there,” Fulford said. “I’d seen that fastball for years.”
He drove a double to center that scored both runners and turned the game on its head. It was the first go-ahead RBI of his career in the eighth inning or later.
“I’d honestly been back in the cage preparing for that at-bat for a couple of innings,” Fulford said. “I felt pretty prepared. Got an advantage count, knew he was going to come with the heater, and I was all over it.”
Schaeffer was unequivocal about its importance.
“It’s hard to say that the Fulford swing was not the turning point of the game,” he said. “Down one to up one in the bottom of the eighth.”
Antonio Senzatela closed it out in the ninth despite a shaky path there – a base hit, an error on a Tovar miscue, and a walk – the bases were loaded with no outs. Senzatela proceeded to get a strikeout and a double play to secure his seventh win of the season, the most by a reliever in franchise history before the All-Star Break. Schaeffer’s faith in him never wavered, even as the inning got messy.
“Senza is a very calming individual,” Schaeffer said. “All the trust in the world that he gets the job done there.”
The win pushed Colorado to 9-10 in one-run games and handed Pittsburgh its 10th last-at-bat loss of the season.
Cole Carrigg, who has now started every game since his call-up roughly a week ago, continued to draw rave reviews from his manager.
“Honestly, there hasn’t been a lot of bad for me,” Schaeffer said of Carrigg’s transition. “The test is going to be when the league adjusts to him. I think he’s going to adjust well.”
For one night, at least, the adjustment wasn’t required. The Rockies got the pitching performance they’d been waiting on from Freeland, the offense found a way through the eighth-inning wreckage, and Senzatela did what Senzatela does. It added up to a win that, on a night with a personal milestone for a senior member of the rotation, felt appropriately earned by the whole roster.
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