DENVER _ Whatever pent-up production the Colorado Rockies had after being blanked by the Cardinals' bullpen late Friday night they unleashed in the eighth inning Saturday.
A scoreless game through six innings and a tied game after 7{ innings evaporated rapidly on the Cardinals as the Rockies microwaved a series of relievers for a 9-1 rout Saturday at Coors Field. In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Cardinals turned to four different relievers, and two of them did not record an out. The Rockies lashed the Cardinals with eight runs and 10 hits in the capsized eighth, and the inning went so long that shortstop Trevor Story got the first out and the second out.
In between his at-bats, the Rockies scored six runs.
The Cardinals lost for the first on the road in 10 games and test their streak of eight consecutive series wins Sunday in the series finale against the Rockies. The game may be the least of the Cardinals' losses Saturday. Kolten Wong and reliever Mike Mayers both left the game with injuries. Wong has a strained right hamstring, the severity of which could lead to a disabled list move in the coming day. Mayers was in the midst of the corrosive eighth inning and failed to retire any of the three batters he faced. His status was not known at deadline.
Starters John Gant and German Marquez both pitched superbly for seven innings before turning the game over to the bullpens. The Cardinals had just answered Matt Holliday's pinch-hit home run when sinkerballer Dakota Hudson opened the eighth. In the majors this season, the rookie had allowed only two runs total.
The Rockies got two off him before he got an out.
Colorado dented Hudson for a total of three runs in the inning, reached lefty Brett Cecil for three more while he did not retire a batter, and then another two came off Mayers. D.J. LeMahieu and Nolan Arenado each had two hits in the inning, and Ian Desmond had a two-run pinch-hit double. Seunghwan Oh, the former Cardinals' closer, finished the game for the Rockies (71-58) to move them back into a virtual tie with the Cardinals (72-58) atop the National League wild-card race. The eight runs were not the most the Rockies have scored against the Cardinals in a single inning at Coors. Close, but not the most.
The bottom of the seventh inning offered as much symbolism as substance when Holliday emerged to pinch-hit for Marquez in a scoreless game and snapped it with a solo homer. Signed in late July and promoted on Thursday, Holliday joined the Rockies, his first team, just in time to play against the team he's played for the most in his career, the Cardinals.
He was in his first uniform, but wearing No. 7, which he didn't adopt till St. Louis.
Against Gant, Holliday drilled his first home run for the Rockies since 2008, the year before the Cardinals acquired him from Oakland. He had gone four All-Star appearances, one Silver Slugger, and nearly a decade since he last put a line drive into the left-field seats as part of the home team at Coors. It was his 315th career homer, moving him on from 314.
The Cardinals answered Holliday's blast with Harrison Bader's dash to tie the game immediately in the top of the eighth inning.
Bader stung a double to open the inning and took third when Greg Garcia dropped a bunt. Former Cardinals' first-round pick Adam Ottavino, now a stalwart in the Rockies' bullpen, struck out Jedd Gyorko to keep the Cardinals from getting the run home with a ball in play.
So, Bader didn't wait for one.
On a ball 4 to Matt Carpenter, Colorado catcher Tony Walters lost track of a breaking ball in the dirt. Bader sped home to tie game, 1-1, with his first run since Aug. 16. Ottavino retired Yadier Molina and Jose Martinez to keep game knotted.
The Cardinals entered Saturday's game having won nine consecutive road games and eight consecutive series, and yet they already had a loss before the end of the second inning.
As he legged out a groundball in his first at-bat, Wong bounced off first base as he arrived and grabbed his right hamstring. The infielder, who has been a pivotal part of the Cardinals' defensive play, hobbled away from the base, where he was met by a team trainer and manager Mike Shildt. Wong walked off the field, gingerly but on his own. He was diagnosed at the ballpark with a hamstring strain and referred to by team officials as "day to day." The severity of any tear will be determined Sunday _ and it could lead to an extended absence for Wong just as his bat was rising to meet his glove.
Wong's early departure from the game left the Cardinals less left-leaning than Shildt had originally planned. He unloaded the left-handed hitters off of his bench in part to get Matt Adams his first start since joining the team, and for the most part to take advantage of Marquez's trouble with left-handed batters. Although solid against lefties over the past three years, Marquez has skewed toward trouble this season when facing batters on the left side. Hitters like Adams and Wong and Garcia, who also started Saturday, have hit .302 with a .457 slugging percentage and an .831 OPS this season off Marquez.
A year ago, when last the Cardinals visited Coors, the longest home run of the Cardinals season came off of Marquez.
It was hit by a batter who had three homers total.
Garcia sent a pitch over the Cardinals' bullpen and off the far wall in right-center field at Coors Field. The distance was estimated at 462 feet, the longest home run tracked by Statcast and hit by a Cardinals' batter. That homer was in Shildt's mind as he started Garcia at shortstop, but it was the splits that swayed him.
When Wong left the game, Garcia moved to second and right-handed-hitting utility fielder Yairo Munoz took over at shortstop. Munoz struck out and hit into a double play in his two at-bats against Marquez. Not that left-handed hitters faired any better.
Adams struck out twice in his first two at-bats vs. Marquez.
Matt Carpenter stung a single to lead off the game and was stranded at first before going hitless in his next two at-bats against Marquez. The Rockies right-hander held the Cardinals scoreless through his seven innings and limited them to three hits (all singles), and he struck out nine. Two of those were Gant, but the bottom five batters in the Cardinals' order combined to go 0-for-12 against Marquez with seven strikeouts. There was no depth of the attack, no turnaround.
Gant's route to his seven innings was less direct.
He walked five batters and had to pitch around and error, and to do so got help from the double play. In the first a strikeout-throw-out double play ended the inning abruptly on the Rockies. In the third inning, a fielding error by Adams was promptly erased by a double play. Two walks invited more trouble in the fourth inning as the Rockies loaded the bases on Gant with two outs. That brought David "Baby Dahl" Dahl to the plate with a chance to be the left-handed hitter that swept the game open. He grounded out to Garcia. Again in the sixth against Gant, Dahl came up with a runner in scoring position _ and this time flew out to give Gant his escape.
The inning started with a fly ball that Bader chased and then lost. He told Shildt on Friday that he was having a hard time getting initial jumps on balls at Coors Field because all of the hits sounded the same off the bat. He had one fly ball that he stepped back on before sprinting in to catch the ball in shallow center.
