Trevor Story has learned to surf the long big-league season.
Sunday afternoon, the Rockies’ all-star shortstop broke out of a slump with a leadoff, 438-foot, walk-off homer off Stefan Crichton to lift the Rockies to a 4-3 home victory over Arizona.
Cowabunga, dude!
“Obviously, you don’t love it when you don’t play like you should, but this being my sixth year, you know you’ll have a lot of ups and downs, so you learn to ride those waves,” Story said after blasting the fourth walk-off home run of his career. The blast gave the Rockies a sweep.
Not only that, the Rockies (18-29) escaped the National League West basement where they had been since April 11. That domain now belongs to the Diamondbacks (18-30), who have lost eight consecutive games overall and 13 in a row on the road.
Story, who’ll become a free agent at the end of the season and who’s been the subject of trade rumors since spring training, entered Sunday’s game slashing .162/.233/.218 over his past 14 games and was 4-for-31 with 12 strikeouts over his last seven. He had not driven in a run since May 12 vs. San Diego, a streak of nine games.
“I thought Trevor was getting closer,” manager Bud Black said. “He was trying to find that timing. But that (home run) swing was reminiscent of when Trevor’s going good, so hopefully, there is some carryover as we head into this road trip.”
The Rockies begin a seven-day, seven-game road trip in New York on Monday where they will open a four-game series vs. the Mets. The Rockies are 2-17 on the road, where they are hitting .207 and have been outscored 107-53.
Story provided a hint that he’d found his swing in the second inning when he ripped a two-out single off Diamondback’s left-hander Taylor Widener to score catcher Dom Nuñez.
“I felt really good about my at-bats this weekend,” said Story, who’s hitting .262 with five home runs and 23 RBIs. “I really like my game plan right now.”
Colorado starter Jon Gray was perfect through four innings and was still cruising through five, despite giving up a leadoff single to Peralta.
But things fell apart for Gray in the sixth when Arizona took a 3-2 lead. It began with back-to-back walks to Daulton Varshow and Andrew Young. On Young’s walk, Nuñez threw wildly to second base trying to catch Varshow stealing, even though it was ball four. The error allowed Varshow to take third and he scored on Ketel Marte’s sacrifice fly to center.
The big blow came next: Pavin’s Smith two-run, 435-foot homer to left off Gray’s 93.3 mph first-pitch fastball.
Black said Gray was sharp through the first three innings but begin to falter with his command in the fourth and fifth.
“I would say that’s pretty accurate,” said Gray, who nonetheless recorded his fifth quality start, all of them coming at Coors Field. “After the first three or four innings we started getting behind the first couple of guys, but we kind of clawed our way back. And there were some times when we basically didn’t attack the guys, especially when we had the lead.”
Colorado had tied the game, 3-3 in the eighth, but should have taken the lead and perhaps wouldn’t have needed Story’s walk-off heroics.
Ryan McMahon led off with a single, took second on a careless error by left fielder David Peralta, advanced to third on Josh Fuentes’ flyball to right and scored on Yonathan Daza’s grounder to second, tying the game. After a walk to Nuñez, pinch-hitter Garrett Hampson hit a flyball double to the right-field corner, but Daza, waiting at second base to see if Josh Reddick caught the ball, was thrown out at home on a series of strong throws from Reddick to second baseman Josh Rojas to catcher Daulton Varsho.
“(Daza) went to tag up with one out, and that’s a no-no,” Black said. “On that play, with the wind (blowing) like it was, and you see the guy drifting, you have to be halfway (to third). You can’t let what happened, happen.”
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