Blackmon as hot as the first-place Rockies

It’s really simple for the Rockies’ Charlie Blackmon.

“You’re only as good as the pitches you swing at,” Blackmon said.

Displaying pitch selection that’s measurably better than even his four All-Star seasons, Blackmon went 3-for-4 to extend his hit streak to 11 games. Blackmon’s night included an eighth-inning leadoff homer, as the Rockies stayed hot with an 8-4 victory over the Mariners at T-Mobile Park on Friday night.

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Blackmon’s shot off Yohan Ramirez was his third homer of the season and second in as many games. Daniel Murphy -- also with three homers and one in each of the last two -- went deep off Ramirez three batters later, giving him four RBIs on the night. Garrett Hampson also homered, collecting his first of the season in the seventh off Eric Swanson.

The power display helped the Rockies, who benefited from Antonio Senzatela’s five strikeouts over six innings (three runs, two earned), improve to 10-3 -- tied with the 1997 club for the second-best 13-game start in club history. The 2011 Rockies started the season 11-3.

Blackmon’s performance pushed his batting average to .423. During the streak, he’s batting .500 (22-for-44). Even more, Blackmon’s success is coming from an approach that values pitch selection over all else.

“I’m just trying to focus in the zone and not do too much; you don’t have to take some incredible swing to hit a pitch if it’s right down the middle,” said Blackmon, who did just that with Ramirez’s 1-0 fastball for his homer in the eighth.

Blackmon saw 17 pitches. Six were balls, including the seven-pitch walk in the ninth. He swung and missed only once and offered at only two pitches outside of the strike zone. That’s a level of discipline that the Rockies have been focusing on to combat the longtime discrepancy between home and road performance.

Blackmon is displaying an approach that can work anywhere.

“It’s hard to hit,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “And we’ve talked about our team goal of decreasing our chase rate. Charlie's done a really good job of that. He’s one of the better players right now who is controlling the strike zone. And he combines it with power and average, which is a great advantage for us to have a player like that.”

Blackmon has been to four All-Star Games, but as last year descended toward a 71-91 finish for the Rockies, he, Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story and David Dahl were among the players who met with hitting coach Dave Magadan and devoted the final two months to identifying that tendency to chase pitches out of the strike zone.

Magadan, who was finishing his first year as the Rockies’ hitting coach, also found that hitters went out of the strike zone at Coors. With the lack of bite on breaking pitches and the big spaces in the outfield, hitters were rewarded. But turning off that approach when the team leaves town has proven difficult throughout the franchise’s existence.

Magadan figured buy-in from the top stars on the attention to plate discipline would allow the emphasis to be accepted not only by the team, but throughout the Minor League system.

The controlled at-bats in the sixth -- Blackmon’s one-out single, a two-out double from Matt Kemp and Murphy’s two-run single to chase Mariners starter Yusei Kikuchi with the Rockies leading, 4-1 -- exemplified all the team has been discussing.

“The big thing is you’ve got three veteran players who understand how to play the game, and that’s important,” Black said.

Blackmon has become a star pupil. Blackmon entered the season with a 30.5 percent chase rate. This season, he has lowered it to 28.1 percent. During the streak, he is chasing just 23.5 percent. For comparison, MLB average last year was 28.5 percent, so the drops are significant.

Blackmon especially was interested in the first games of road trips after games at Coors.

The Rockies checked that box Friday with 10 hits, five for extra bases. To help with the greater break and movement of pitches away from Coors, Blackmon and his teammates hit in the T-Mobile Park batting cages against the club’s portable pitching machine, which can be calibrated to imitate the spin of any opposing pitcher.

“We have the pitching machine, and that’s something I think is going to help us on the road produce a little bit, and we had a pretty good day at the plate for our whole offense,” Blackmon said. “It’s one game, a small sample size. I wouldn’t chalk it up to ‘the Rockies are amazing on the road’ just yet. I think we’re on the right track.”