DENVER — Leave it to a Nolan to find a way to win in Colorado.
A day after Nolan Arenado reanimated the Cardinals with a three-run double, Nolan Gorman shattered a tie game in the eighth inning Wednesday with a home run. Gorman’s second homer in as many days at Coors Field catapulted the Cardinals ahead for a 7-4 victory against the Rockies in a taut afternoon game and rollicking finish to a bumpy road trip.
The Cardinals hit three home runs to tie the game, get ahead, and then get ahead again to win the three-game series.
Tyler O’Neill’s first homer since opening day answered the Rockies’ early lead. Arenado’s two-run shot in the fourth broke a midgame tie. From there, a couple of kids took over. In the eighth, Gorman hit a two-run, two-out homer to the opposite field that broke a 4-4 tie. The Cardinals extended their lead in the ninth when Jordan Walker matched history with a hit in his 12th consecutive game to start his career. He raced around to score the Cardinals’ seventh and final run.
Relievers Giovanny Gallegos and Ryan Helsley assured Gorman’s fourth homer of the season was enough for the win – and, in unseasonably warm temps for the Front Range, a sunnier finish to a road trip that threatened to go sideways.
At 20, Walker ties 111-year-old record
It took a groundball finding a way up the middle on his final swing of the game for rookie Walker to move alongside history and put himself one base hit away from something no other major-leaguer has done as young as he’s done it.
Walker’s single in the ninth inning extended the hitting streak to start his career to 12 games. That matches “Honest” Eddie Murphy’s streak which has been the record for a player 20 or younger since 1912.
The record streak for a rookie of any age to begin a career is 17 games.
A Coors rookie, Flaherty asserts his command
The first pitch Flaherty threw at Coors Field was launched for a home run.
His day got better from there.
The Cardinals starter, vexed by 13 walks in his first two starts, did not start behind in the count, but was quickly behind on the scoreboard. Leadoff hitter Jurickson Profar lofted an 89.8-mph fastball into the seats above the right-field wall for a 1-0 lead on Flaherty’s first pitch. It was also his slowest fastball of the game. From there, Flaherty picked up both his tempo and his velocity. The right-hander got a double play to end the first inning, and for the next 15 batters allowed only two balls out of the reach of an infielder.
In the series, the Cardinals started two pitchers – Steven Matz and Miles Mikolas – who combined had an ERA near 11.00 at Coors. Flaherty’s only history at the ballpark was the innings he’s watched teammates pitch there.
He sidestepped the walks that complicated his earlier starts by leaning hard into his slider. Flaherty threw the breaking pitch at an average 2 mph harder than previously this season. Nearly half of his 85 pitches were sliders and he got 10 whiffs on them. In the sixth inning, Flaherty collected his sixth strikeout of the game against one walk before turning the lead over to the bullpen after 5 1/3 innings.
Thompson invites then neutralizes trouble
Two of the most consequential baserunners of Flaherty’s start remained on the field as the right-handed made his way off of it.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Flaherty allowed a single and struck out Profar. Manager Oliver Marmol made a visit to the mound ahead of Charlie Blackmon’s third plate appearance against Flaherty. The ball never left Flaherty’s right hand. The Cardinals’ starter remained in the game to face Blackmon, and the Rockies’ All-Star tagged Flaherty’s last pitch for a double.
Walker had a play on the fly ball near the tall right-field wall but juggled the catch before the ball and him landed on the warning track.
Credited with a double, Blackmon chased Flaherty from the game.
The Rockies had the tying and go-ahead run in scoring position when Marmol returned to the mound. This time he took the ball and handed it to lefty Zack Thompson. The rookie walked the next batter, a left-handed hitter, on four pitches to load the bases. With one out, he had to face right-handed slugger C. J. Cron, who had four homers and was off to one of the better power starts of the season. Thompson struck him out on three pitches.
A line drive to O’Neill ended the inning without either of Flaherty’s runners scoring. That inched the right-hander’s ERA down to 1.76 through three starts.
Rockies strike for tie game
The back end of the Rockies’ lineup got the better of the back end of the Cardinals’ bullpen to rally for two runs and a tie game in the seventh inning. Drew VerHagen, emerging as one of the Cardinals’ setup men, inherited the lead from Thompson and promptly allowed two well-struck baseballs. One went for a double, the other a lineout.
VerHagen lost a hold on the inning with a walk to the No. 8 hitter and a flare single to pinch-hitter and catcher Elias Diaz. That RBI single chased VerHagen from the game and left Andre Pallante in a spot like Thompson the inning before. Pallante got the groundball that could have ended the inning. The Cardinals did not turn the double play would have.
A run scored on Profar’s groundout to knot the game, 4-4.
Arenado climbs Coors career rankings
Although into his third season since the trade to the Cardinals, a visit to Denver still gives Arenado an opportunity to write his way ever higher into the Rockies’ records.
After a leadoff walk to Paul Goldschmidt in the fourth inning, Arenado drilled a two-run homer to break a 1-1 tie on the scoreboard and create a tie in the ballpark’s record books.
The homer, Arenado’s 301st of his career, was also his 139th at Coors Field. He’s hit three as a member of the Cardinals at the Rockies’ home park. The 139 pairs him with outfielder Carlos Gonzalez for the third-most all-time at Coors, which opened in 1995. The two Rockies ahead of him are Todd Helton (227) and Hall of Famer Larry Walker (154). Both of them have their numbers retired by the 30-year-old Colorado franchise.
Have Gold Glove, will travel
Brendan Donovan went to work on winning a second consecutive utility fielder Gold Glove Award during the series at Coors Field by starting at three different positions, all of which he had not started at so far this season.
Donovan completed his tour of the field Wednesday with a start as shortstop. He had previously started at first base and, on Tuesday night, went into the deepest recesses of the left-center field gap as the Cardinals’ starting left field. The only spot in the Cardinals’ lineup he had consistently was leadoff. At shortstop, Donovan started a double play that helped Flaherty slip out of the fourth inning allowing only a run, and in the fifth inning he loped into shallow left-center to catch a soft liner before it dropped for a base hit.
That play at short was leisurely compared to the long, long marathon he felt he ran in left field Tuesday.
In the eighth of the Cardinals’ 9-6 victory, Donovan dashed deep into the cavernous left-center gap to make a catch that took a potential triple from the Rockies. Arenado, who listed left fielders he played with in Colorado that came in winded from those deep routes, laughed as he said Donovan “thought he was going to hit the wall and he was still a few feet from the wall.”
“It kept going and going,” Donovan said.
