For seven innings, the Rockies looked like they had finally found the easy version of a win.
Then the game lost its mind.
Colorado built a 6-0 lead, gave it all back in one disastrous inning, survived repeated late showdowns with Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, and still found a way to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 9-7 in 11 innings Friday night at Citizens Bank Park.
This was not a baseball game so much as an emotional endurance test.
One night after a thrilling win, the Rockies delivered another
chaotic, resilient performance. They are still flawed enough to create their own disasters. But increasingly, they are also showing they can fight through them.
Colorado improved to 16-23 with the win. Philadelphia fell to 17-22.
Dollander sets the tone
The Rockies scored first without a hit.
Jordan Beck walked to open the game, moved to second on a Tyler Freeman groundout, took third on a wild pitch, and scored when TJ Rumfield grounded out to first.
That was enough for an early lead.
Then Chase Dollander made it feel bigger.
The right-hander attacked Philadelphia with upper-90s and triple-digit velocity. He looked calm. He worked with traffic. He did not always command the baseball, but he kept the Phillies from doing much with it.
Dollander used six pitches, leaning mostly on his four-seam fastball and sinker while mixing in his slider, curveball, sweeper and changeup. The stuff was real. So was the occasional scattershot command. He threw 41 balls among his 89 pitches, which helped explain the five walks.
Still, Philadelphia managed only three hits against him.
His fifth inning was the best example. Bryson Stott drew a leadoff walk and moved into scoring position. Dollander fielded a soft comebacker himself, then struck out Justin Crawford and Trea Turner to strand him.
The sixth made the line messier. Schwarber punished Dollander’s first real mistake with a solo homer to right. Harper walked on four pitches. Dollander nearly limited it there, getting Adolis García to fly out and Brandon Marsh to hit into a forceout, but J.T. Realmuto followed with an RBI double to make it 6-2.
Jaden Hill entered and got Stott to pop out.
Dollander finished with 5.2 innings, three hits, two runs, five walks and five strikeouts. His ERA rose to 3.35.
For long stretches, Dollander felt like an ace, even if he did not always look as sharp as one.
The Rockies make contact count
Colorado broke the game open in the fourth.
Rumfield led off with a single. Hunter Goodman followed with the swing that changed the night.
Goodman’s approach is not subtle: he swings violently, and he swings often. But when he squares one up, the damage is immediate. Jesús Luzardo found that out when Goodman launched a two-run homer to make it 3-0, part of a 4-for-5 night that gave the Rockies damage and length in the middle of the lineup.
Brenton Doyle walked. Willi Castro reached on a bunt single. Kyle Karros ripped a two-run double. Ezequiel Tovar added a good piece of hitting with an RBI single up the middle.
That made it 6-0.
Luzardo’s Jekyll-and-Hyde season continued. He struck out six through three innings. Then the fourth swallowed him whole. The Phillies left-hander exited after just three-plus innings, charged with six runs on six hits, three walks and a homer. His ERA rose to 5.98.
The Rockies struck out 16 times as a team. That is usually a problem.
On Friday, it was not the whole story. Goodman went 4-for-5 with a homer. Freeman and Castro each had two hits. Karros doubled. The Rockies stole four bases and kept adding pressure whenever the game gave them an opening.
Still, after Freeman’s solo shot made it 7-2 in the seventh, the offense went quiet for a while.
The game flips in the eighth
The warning came in the sixth.
Schwarber punished Dollander’s first real mistake with a 415-foot solo homer to right. It was loud. It was also survivable.
The eighth was not.
Brennan Bernardino had delivered one of the biggest outs of the night to end the seventh, striking out Schwarber with a sweeper to strand a runner and keep the Rockies ahead by five. Then Bernardino came back out for the eighth, and the game started to slip.
Harper singled. García walked. Marsh singled home a run.
Then Jimmy Herget entered.
For a moment, it looked like he might stop it. Herget struck out Realmuto for the first out. Then Stott doubled home two runs, cutting the lead to 7-5.
Then Crawford delivered the gut punch.
With two outs, Crawford hit a two-run homer to right-center. Tie game. The 6-0 lead was gone. The 7-2 lead was gone. Most of the good baseball Colorado had played suddenly felt very far away.
One inning changed everything.
Vodnik restores order
The Rockies had a chance in the ninth.
Brett Sullivan was hit by a pitch. Jake McCarthy entered as a pinch-runner. McCarthy stole second with two outs.
Freeman had the chance. He is a hitter the Rockies trust to put the ball in play. He fought through a tense at-bat, fouled off tough pitches, and then struck out. McCarthy stayed at second.
That sent the game to the bottom of the ninth.
Every Rockies fan watched while gripping the couch. Victor Vodnik made sure they could let go for a moment.
Vodnik struck out Schwarber, got Harper to line out to left, then punched out García. That sent the game to extras.
Then he came back out for the 10th and did it again.
The automatic runner started at second. Colorado intentionally walked Marsh to create force plays. Vodnik got Realmuto to fly out, Stott to pop out, and Edmundo Sosa to line out.
Two scoreless innings. No hits. Two strikeouts.
After the bullpen nearly gave the game away, Vodnik gave it back to the Rockies.
The Rockies answer in the 11th
The Rockies did not fold.
After watching a six-run lead disappear, Colorado found another push in the 11th. Troy Johnston, pinch-hitting for Karros, ripped an RBI double into right field to score the automatic runner and put the Rockies back in front.
McCarthy kept it going.
Inserted earlier as a pinch-runner, McCarthy had already stolen a base in the ninth. In the 11th, he delivered with his bat, lining an RBI single into center to score Johnston and extend Colorado’s lead to 9-7.
Shutting the door
That gave Juan Mejía two runs to work with.
Extra innings do not offer soft landings, and Crawford immediately made sure the pressure returned. Crawford, the same hitter who tied the game in the eighth, singled to put runners on the corners with one out.
That brought up Schwarber.
The winning run. Just one easy swing and it is over.
This was the at-bat that could have flipped the whole thing again. Mejía did not pitch around it. He attacked Schwarber with power, reached back for a fastball above the zone, and got the Phillies slugger to check his swing at a pitch he could not do anything with. Strike three.
But the pressure remained.
Harper was up. Of course.
Mejía got him to ground out to second. Game over.
They survived the game they created
The Rockies nearly gave it away.
They did not.
For seven innings, they looked like they had found the easy version of a win. Then the game lost its mind, and for a while, it looked like Colorado might follow it there.
Instead, the Rockies answered.
They survived the collapse. They survived Schwarber. They survived Harper. They survived themselves.
Up next
The Rockies will try to keep the momentum going Saturday at Citizens Bank Park.
Kyle Freeland is scheduled to start for Colorado. He enters at 1-3 with a 5.04 ERA and 24 strikeouts. Philadelphia will counter with Aaron Nola, who is 2-3 with a 5.06 ERA and 40 strikeouts.
First pitch is set for 4:05 p.m. MDT. After two straight chaotic wins, the Rockies will look to keep rolling in the second game of the series.
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